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Life Cycle Assessment of the Fairphone 2
Final Report
Marina Proske
Christian Clemm
Nikolai Richter
Berlin, November 2016
Contact:
Fraunhofer IZM
Gustav-Meyer-Allee 25, 13355 Berlin, Germany
Phone: +49.30.46403-771
Fax: +49.30.46403-211
Email: [email protected]
Please note: The annex is excluded from this public version of the study as it contains confi-
dential information. As the actual study text was not changed, several references to the annex
are still included.
2
Content
Content ................................................................................................................................ 2
List of Tables ....................................................................................................................... 4
List of Figures ..................................................................................................................... 6
Abbreviations ...................................................................................................................... 8
1 Executive Summary ....................................................................................................10
2 Goal and Scope Definition ..........................................................................................13
2.1 Goal .................................................................................................................................... 13
2.2 Scope ................................................................................................................................. 13
3 Life Cycle Inventory ....................................................................................................14
3.1 Raw material acquisition and manufacturing ..................................................................... 14
3.1.1 Core module .......................................................................................................... 16
3.1.2 Top module ............................................................................................................ 16
3.1.3 Camera module ..................................................................................................... 16
3.1.4 Bottom module ....................................................................................................... 17
3.1.5 Display module ...................................................................................................... 17
3.1.6 Battery module ....................................................................................................... 20
3.1.7 Back cover ............................................................................................................. 21
3.1.8 Assembly process .................................................................................................. 21
3.1.9 Cross-module approaches .................................................................................... 21
3.1.10 Packaging ............................................................................................................ 27
3.2 Use phase .......................................................................................................................... 29
3.3 End-of-Life .......................................................................................................................... 30
3.4 Transport ............................................................................................................................ 31
3.4.1 Transport to final assembly ................................................................................... 32
3.4.2 Transport to distribution hub .................................................................................. 32
3.4.3 Transport to customer............................................................................................ 33
4 Impact Assessment ....................................................................................................35
4.1 Definition of impact categories ........................................................................................... 35
4.2 Results ............................................................................................................................... 36
4.3 Contribution Analysis ......................................................................................................... 37
4.3.1 Production .............................................................................................................. 37
4.3.2 Use phase .............................................................................................................. 43
4.3.3 EoL......................................................................................................................... 44
4.3.4 Transport ............................................................................................................... 45
4.3.5 Modularity .............................................................................................................. 50
4.4 Sensitivity Analysis ............................................................................................................ 51
4.4.1 ICs.......................................................................................................................... 51
4.4.2 Display ................................................................................................................... 55
4.4.3 Battery ................................................................................................................... 55
4.5 Interpretation ...................................................................................................................... 56
4.5.1 Comparison with Fairphone 1 LCA ........................................................................ 58
4.5.2 Comparison with other smartphone LCAs ............................................................. 58
5 Scenarios .....................................................................................................................59
3
5.1 Repair Scenario ................................................................................................................. 59
5.1.1 Production .............................................................................................................. 60
5.1.2 Use......................................................................................................................... 61
5.1.3 End-of-Life ............................................................................................................. 61
5.1.4 Transport ............................................................................................................... 61
5.1.5 Results and Interpretation ..................................................................................... 62
5.2 Scenario Housing ............................................................................................................... 63
5.2.1 Results and Interpretation ..................................................................................... 64
6 Conclusions and Recommendations .........................................................................65
6.1 Recommendations ............................................................................................................. 65
7 Literature .....................................................................................................................70
8 Annex ...........................................................................................................................73
8.1 Comparison with Fairphone 1 LCA .................................................................................... 74
8.2 Inventory lists ..................................................................................................................... 76
8.2.1 Core module .......................................................................................................... 77
8.2.2 Mainboard .............................................................................................................. 90
8.2.3 Top module .......................................................................................................... 103
8.2.4 Camera module ................................................................................................... 109
8.2.5 Bottom module ..................................................................................................... 113
8.2.6 Display module .................................................................................................... 119
8.2.7 Battery module ..................................................................................................... 123
8.2.8 Back cover ........................................................................................................... 125
4
List of Tables
Table 3-1: Main parts per module .........................................................................................14
Table 3-2: Panel production data by AUO ............................................................................18
Table 3-3: Die area per display area [Deubzer 2012] ...........................................................20
Table 3-4: Mass percentage of the most important cell materials .........................................20
Table 3-5: Material composition of board-to-board connectors (totals) according to material declarations from GSN .........................................................................................................22
Table 3-6: Allocation of PCB area ........................................................................................23
Table 3-7: Environmental impacts according to Boyd [2012] per cm2 die for the technology 32 nm ...................................................................................................................................24
Table 3-8: Front-end and back-end emissions per cm2 die for the technology node 32 nm ..26
Table 3-9: Bulk packaging of the Fairphone 2 to the distribution hub ....................................28
Table 3-10: Individual sales packaging .................................................................................28
Table 3-11: Summary of use-phase assumptions (baseline scenario) ..................................29
Table 3-12: Regional distribution of sales used for the energy mix in the use phase ............30
Table 3-13: Transportation to distribution hub ......................................................................33
Table 3-14: Transportation to customer ................................................................................33
Table 4-1: Impact categories and category indicators according to [CML 2001] ...................35
Table 4-2: Results per life cycle phase .................................................................................37
Table 4-3: Results of the production phase per module ........................................................41
Table 4-4: Results of the production of the mainboard .........................................................41
Table 4-5. Results per component type – production phase .................................................42
Table 4-6: Results of the use phase .....................................................................................48
Table 4-7: Results of the transportation phase .....................................................................48
Table 4-8: Results for the EoL ..............................................................................................49
Table 4-9: Material for sub-housings ....................................................................................50
Table 4-10: Results modularity .............................................................................................51
Table 4-11: Results mainboard, sensitivity analysis for ICs – ecoinvent data .......................54
Table 4-12: Results mainboard, sensitivity analysis for ICs – data according to Ercan (2016) .............................................................................................................................................54
Table 4-13: Comparison of cell properties ............................................................................55
Table 4-14: Results of the battery module sensitivity analysis ..............................................55
Table 5-1: Assumed repairs and part changes within five years use .....................................59
Table 5-2: Additional production of parts ..............................................................................61
Table 5-3: Results repair scenario (with module refurbishment) ...........................................62
Table 5-4: Results repair scenario (without module refurbishment) ......................................63
Table 5-5: Results for the housing scenario ..........................................................................64
Table 8-1: Comparison of production impacts of Fairphone 1 and 2, impact category GWP .74
Table 8-2: Inventory list and allocated processes for the core module ..................................77
5
Table 8-3: Material composition of the MicroUSB connector according to JAE .....................88
Table 8-4: Material composition of earphone jack, MicroSD slot, SIM slot and battery connector according to GSN ................................................................................................89
Table 8-5: Inventory list and allocated processes for the mainboard.....................................90
Table 8-6: Inventory list and allocated processes for the top module .................................. 103
Table 8-7: Inventory list and allocated processes for the camera module ........................... 109
Table 8-8: Inventory list and allocated processes for the bottom module ............................ 113
Table 8-9: Material composition of the vibration motor ....................................................... 117
Table 8-10: Inventory list and allocated processes for display module ................................ 119
Table 8-11: Inventory list and allocated processes for the battery module (data valid for 1 piece battery module) ......................................................................................................... 123
Table 8-12: Inventory list and allocated processes for the back cover ................................ 125
6
List of Figures
Figure 1-1: Relative impacts of the different life cycle phases per impact category ...............10
Figure 1-2: Relative impacts of the different component types per impact category ..............11
Figure 1-3: Results per year of use - baseline and repair scenario .......................................11
Figure 3-1: Life cycle phases and transport processes of the Fairphone 2 ...........................14
Figure 3-2: Exemplary modelling of the manufacturing phase ..............................................15
Figure 3-3: Life cycle phases and transport processes of the Fairphone 2 ...........................32
Figure 4-1: Relative impacts of the different life cycle phases per impact category ...............37
Figure 4-2: Relative impacts of the different modules of the production phase, impact category GWP ......................................................................................................................38
Figure 4-3: Relative impacts of the production phase per module and impact category ........38
Figure 4-4: Relative impacts for the mainboard, impact category: GWP ...............................39
Figure 4-5: Relative impacts of the mainboard per impact category......................................39
Figure 4-6: Relative impacts of the different component types, impact category GWP .........40
Figure 4-7: Relative impacts of the different component type per impact category ...............40
Figure 4-8: GHG emissions of the use phase per country ....................................................43
Figure 4-9: Share of sales per country ..................................................................................43
Figure 4-10: Relative impacts of the use phase per country and impact category.................44
Figure 4-11: Impacts of the EoL phase per process for the impact category GWP ...............45
Figure 4-12: Impacts of the EoL phase per process for the impact category ADP elements .45
Figure 4-13: Relative impact of transportation phases “to assembly”, “to distribution”, and “to customer”, impact category: GWP ........................................................................................46
Figure 4-14: Relative impact of the mode of transportation, impact category GWP ..............46
Figure 4-15: Relative impact of the transportation phases “to assembly”, “to distribution”, and “to customer” per impact category ........................................................................................47
Figure 4-16: Sensitivity ecoinvent IC data – comparison with baseline results (baseline results set to 1) .....................................................................................................................52
Figure 4-17: Sensitivity ecoinvent IC data - relative impacts of the mainboard per impact category ...............................................................................................................................53
Figure 4-18: Sensitivity Ercan (2016) IC data – relative impact of the mainboard, impact category GWP ......................................................................................................................53
Figure 5-1: Overall failure rate (malfunctioning and accidents) in the first twelve months [Squaretrade 2010] ...............................................................................................................60
Figure 5-2: Repair reasons according to handyreparaturvergleich.de (calculated as averages per publication year of the devices) ......................................................................................60
Figure 5-3: Results per year of use - baseline and repair scenario (with and without refurbishment of modules) ....................................................................................................63
Figure 6-1: Arrangement of mainboard and two antenna boards of the Fairphone 2 on one production panel, 4 boards each per panel [Source: Fairphone B.V.] ...................................66
Figure 6-2: Mainboard, board-to-board connectors marked in red [Source: Fraunhofer IZM] 67
Figure 8-1: Comparison of results from the Fairphone 1 and 2 LCA, impact category: GWP 74
7
Figure 8-2: Comparison FP1 and FP2 results, impact category GWP ..................................75
8
Abbreviations
ADP Abiotic resource depletion
AUO AU Optronics Corporation, Taiwanese display manufacturer
BMS Battery management system
BOD Biological oxygen demand
BoM Bill of materials
BtB connector Board-to-board connector
CMOS Complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor
Co Cobalt
CO2e Carbon dioxide equivalents
COD Chemical oxygen demand
CPU Central processing unit
DCB-e Dichlorobenzene equivalents
DIY do-it-yourself
DRAM Dynamic random access memory
ecoinvent Life cycle inventory data base
EoL End of life
FP1 Fairphone 1
FP2 Fairphone 2
GaBi LCA software by thinkstep
GHG Greenhouse gas
GWP Global warming potential
HCl Hydrochloric acid
Hi-P Hi-P International Limited
IC Integrated circuit
LCA Life cycle assessment
LCD Liquid crystal display
LCI Life cycle inventory
LCIA Life cycle impact assessment
LCO Lithium cobalt oxide
LED Light emitting diode
LPG Liquefied petroleum gas
MJ Megajoule
NOx Generic term for the mono-nitrogen oxides nitric oxide (NO) and nitrogen
dioxide (NO2)
9
ODS Ozone-depleting substance
PC Polycarbonate
PCB Printed circuit board
PFC Perfluorocarbons
SB-e Antimony equivalents
SOx Sulfur oxide
TPU Thermoplastic polyurethane
TSS Total suspended solids
VOCs Volatile organic compounds
10
1 Executive Summary
The Fairphone 2 is a modular smartphone by Fairphone B.V. To assess the environmental
impact caused by the production, use, and recycling of the smartphone a life cycle assessment
(LCA) is conducted, covering the following impact categories:
Climate change (GWP)
Abiotic resource depletion (ADP)
Human toxicity (Humantox)
Ecotoxicity (Ecotox)
The data inventory is based on the bill-of-materials (BoM), a product tear-down, and material
declarations for subparts from suppliers. Primary data for the final assembly process was ob-
tained from Hi-P. Other materials and components are modelled with data from GaBi (plus
electronics extension) and ecoinvent v3.2 plus individual data sources from public sources
(e.g. on ICs, display, and battery). The functional unit is one Fairphone 2 for a three-year use.
Results
The results amount to 43.9 kg CO2e with the production phase having the highest impact for
all analyzed impact categories (Figure 1-1). Use phase and transport (to final assembly, to
distribution hub, and to customer) have a low impact on the overall life cycle. Recycling has a
positive effect for all impact categories (resulting in a negative impact1).
Figure 1-1: Relative impacts of the different life cycle phases per impact category
Within the production phase, the highest impact is caused by the ICs, followed by the printed
circuit boards (PCBs) and the assembly process as such (see Figure 1-2). An exception is the
impact category ADP elements where the board-to-board connectors cause the main produc-
tion impact due to the amount of gold used for the contacts.
1 The total impact of all life cycle phases adds up to 100 %. As the recycling processes are beneficial
from environmental perspective, their calculated impact is negative leading to an impact of the other
life cycle phases above 100 %.
-150%
-100%
-50%
0%
50%
100%
150%
200%
250%
Production EoL Use Transport
GWP
ADP elements
ADP fossil
Humantox
Ecotox
11
Figure 1-2: Relative impacts of the different component types per impact category
Modularity and Repair
The modular design itself causes an additional impact on manufacturing (compared to a fic-
tional non-modular Fairphone 2) through sub-housing of the modules, board-to-board connect-
ors, and additional PCB area for the connectors. However, the overall impact on the entire life
cycle is minor (4 to 12 % depending on the impact category) and stems mostly from the addi-
tional PCB area and board-to-board connectors. The only exception is the impact category
ADP elements, where the “modularity parts” are responsible for about half of the overall impact,
which is mainly attributed to the gold used for the board-to-board connectors.2
To analyze the potential of the modular and therefore repairable design, a repair scenario is
analyzed with an assumed use time of five years and an average number of repairs. This repair
scenario has a positive effect seen across the whole life cycle and reduces the GWP by 28 %
(see Figure 1-3).
Figure 1-3: Results per year of use - baseline and repair scenario
2 These impacts of the “modularity parts” are included in the total results described above.
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60% GWP
ADP elements
ADP fossil
Humantox
Ecotox
-2
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
Baseline Repair w/o refurbishment
GW
P [
kg C
O2
e/ye
ar o
f u
se]
Transport
Use
Production
EoL
12
Conclusions
The results show that the electronic components as such cause the main environmental im-
pact. Industrial design decisions such as housing materials have a minor impact. Because the
main impact is caused by the product manufacturing, prolonging the use time (number of
years) has a high potential to reduce the overall environmental impact, as has also been shown
by the analyzed repair scenario. Thereby, the modular design – although increasing the initial
production impact slightly – has the potential to reduce the overall environmental impact
through enabled repairs.
The analysis also shows the on-going problem with life cycle assessments for electronics: the
availability of specific and up-to-date life cycle data on electronics is still not sufficient and
variances between different data bases and sources is high. Nevertheless, the overall results
are deemed reliable.
13
2 Goal and Scope Definition
2.1 Goal
The goals of this life cycle assessment (LCA) are to identify the hotspots in the life cycle of the
Fairphone 2 and derive possible improvement measures. Therefore a baseline scenario is
analyzed. In addition, the calculation of two scenarios is carried out as well (see section 5):
Repair scenario: analyzing the effect of longer use time enabled through different re-pairs/module replacements
Housing scenario: the effect of using different housings is analyzed
o New plastic back cover (thinner than the existing plastic back cover)
o Aluminum back cover
The intended applications of the study are:
Use the results for improvement of the existing design of the Fairphone 2
Use lessons-learned for possible future product designs
Evaluate the importance and the effect of improvement measure during manufac-turing processes and other life cycle stages (e.g. take-back and refurbishment ac-tivities for modules)
Stakeholder communication
2.2 Scope
The scope of this study covers the entire life cycle of the Fairphone 2 from raw material acqui-
sition, manufacturing, and use to end-of-life.
The functional unit for the baseline scenario is an intensive smartphone use over three years.
The corresponding reference flow is the Fairphone 2 as delivered to the customer including
sales packaging and manual (without charger, which is not part of the standard delivery).
The data inventory is based on the bill-of-materials (BoM), a product tear-down, and material
declarations for subparts from suppliers. Suppliers were also asked for primary data regarding
production processes (energy and material consumption in production, direct emissions), but
no life cycle or process data could be obtained from Fairphone suppliers within the time of this
study except several (full) material declarations. Only the final assembly process is modelled
according to primary data from Hi-P (see section 3.1.8).
The following impact categories are covered (for definitions see section 4.1):
Climate change (GWP)
Abiotic resource depletion (ADP)
Human toxicity (Humantox)
Ecotoxicity (Ecotox)
However, not all processes used in the assessment cover all of the named impact categories.
The effect will be described in the sensitivity analysis (section 4.3.5) and interpretation of the
results (section 4.5).
Transport processes are covered for the product delivery to the customer, transport to the
distribution hub and transport of parts of the final assembly. No further upstream transport
processes were covered.
14
3 Life Cycle Inventory
The life cycle inventory is divided into the following sections:
Raw material acquisition and manufacturing
Use phase
End-of-life (EoL)
Transport
Figure 3-1: Life cycle phases and transport processes of the Fairphone 2
The raw material acquisition is indirectly covered using cradle-to-gate data sets for the manu-
facturing.
When not described otherwise for individual processes, data stems from the GaBi database
incl. electronics extension and the ecoinvent v3.1 database. The modelling is carried out with
the GaBi LCA software.
3.1 Raw material acquisition and manufacturing
Baseline for the modelling of the manufacturing phase was the BoM from the Fairphone 2
supplemented with a product teardown. Thereby all parts and corresponding masses were
identified and life cycle data sets allocated. The modular design of the Fairphone 2 is reflected
in the inventory model, so that the LCA model can be adjusted in future analyses with individual
changes of the product design. The main product modules are shown in Table 3-1.
Table 3-1: Main parts per module
Module Main parts Weight [g]
Fairphone 2 168
Core module 40
Mainboard with
Electronic components
Board-to-board connectors
18.9
Antenna boards 0.373
Volume button, power button, camera button assembly 0.141
Top module 6.5
Top module board 1.25
Front camera 0.338
Receiver (speaker) 0.35
15
Module Main parts Weight [g]
Camera module 3.8
Camera 0.791
Camera board 0.445
Bottom module 9.2
Bottom module board 1.32
Vibration motor 0.923
Microphone
Speaker 1.352
USB connector
Display module 52.5
Display frame 10.8
LCD display
Display board 0.955
Battery module 38
Battery
Back cover 20.1
Outer case 19.6
Battery pressure pad
Camera seal gasket
The modelling of the different components is exemplarily shown in Figure 3-2.
Figure 3-2: Exemplary modelling of the manufacturing phase
16
The following approach is used for the modelling of all modules:
Mechanical parts were modelled based on the material composition and weights derived from the material declarations or the product tear-down.
The boards consist of the printed circuit boards themselves, the electronic compo-nents and the board-to-board connectors. For the printed circuit board, a data set from the GaBi database was used. The detailed modeling is described in section 3.1.9.3.
The passive electronic components are modelled with data sets from the GaBi elec-tronics extension database. For some components (e.g. filters), no specific life cycle data sets were available in the data bases. These components were weighted and included as “electronic component, passive, unspecified” from ecoinvent and scaled per weight. Therefore the passive components were disassembled from the board and sorted (specific data set available or not). Thereby, a slight overestimation is possible as in case of doubt (whether a specific component is already covered with a specific data set). The weight of the component was included in the “unspecified” data set.
For the ICs, a detailed model was developed with the die size as a scaling parameter (see section 3.1.9.4).
The connectors were modelled according to the material composition (see section 3.1.9.1).
Module-specific parts and approaches are described in the following sections.
3.1.1 Core module
The main parts of the core module are:
Mainboard with
o Electronic components
o Board-to-board connectors
Antenna boards
Volume button, power button, camera button assembly
The antenna and button boards consist of flexible printed circuit boards. As no life cycle data
set for flexible boards is available in the data bases, they are modelled as 1-layer PCBs with
a data set from the GaBi data base.
The detailed BoM with the assigned weight and life cycle data set for the core module can be
found in the annex in Table 8-2 to Table 8-5.
3.1.2 Top module
The main parts of the top module are:
Top module board
Front camera
Receiver (speaker)
For the modelling of the camera see section 3.1.9.1.
The detailed BoM with the assigned weight and life cycle data set for the top module can be
found in the annex in Table 8-6.
3.1.3 Camera module
The main parts of the camera module are:
Camera
Camera board
17
For the modelling of the camera see section 3.1.9.1.
The detailed BoM with the assigned weight and life cycle data set for the camera module can
be found in the annex in Table 8-7.
3.1.4 Bottom module
The main parts of the bottom module are:
Bottom module board
Speaker
MicroUSB connector
Vibration motor
Microphone
For the modelling of the MicroUSB connector see section 3.1.9.2.
For the speaker, an existing data set from GaBi (Micro Speaker (2g, dynamic, Nd magnet,
SMD)) was used and scaled per mass.
The vibration motor is modelled according to the material composition given by the manufac-
turer (see Table 8-9 in the annex). The vibration motor contains Tungsten, rare earth metals
(Neodymium) and precious metals (gold, platinum and palladium). As neither GaBi nor ecoin-
vent contain a data set on Tungsten, Tungsten was modelled according to the German life
cycle data base ProBas3.
The detailed BoM with the assigned weight and life cycle data set for the bottom module can
be found in the annex in Table 8-8.
3.1.5 Display module
The display module consists of:
Display frame
LCD Display
Display board
The detailed BoM with the assigned weight and life cycle data set for the display module can
be found in the annex in Table 8-10.
3.1.5.1 LCD Display
The GaBi database does not include a dataset for an LCD display. Ecoinvent has an LCD
display data set, which is however quite old (2001) and for a 17 inch display. Instead, data
from the Taiwanese display manufacturer AUO is used which is derived from their CSR report
(data for the year 2015).
The data is scaled by panel size. The Fairphone 2 display has a size of 73.7 cm2.
Scope
AUO data covers scope 1 (direct emissions) and scope 2 (purchased energy). Scope 3 covers
product use, business travel, and commuting but the impact of upstream suppliers and is there-
fore not taken into account. Production of input materials is not covered.
3 Description of the Tungsten data set in German: ProBas: Wolfram, online: http://www.probas.umwelt-
bundesamt.de/php/prozessdetails.php?id={A4A89322-AC81-4FA2-BB1C-5EE0B77E9180}
(checked: 09/19/2016)
18
AUO data covers the panel manufacturing without backlight and electronics (display board).
Panel production AUO
The following data presented in Table 3-2 is given by the AUO CSR report. Data marked in
orange is transferred to the LCA model.
The given values from AUO for scope 2 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (from purchased
energy) are not directly transferred, but the energy consumption is included via the correspond-
ing processes (electricity production, gas, diesel) to also address other impact categories. Pur-
chased electricity for the production process is included as electricity from Taiwan.
Table 3-2: Panel production data by AUO
Totals (2015)
Per pro-duced m2
Fairphone 2 display
Inputs
Glass Substrate 106,911.70 tons 2.03 kg 0.015 kg
Liquid Crystal 76.90 tons 0.0015 kg 1.08E-05 kg
CF Thinner 1,040.00 tons 0.020 kg 1.45E-04 kg
Array Stripper Usage 5,221.00 tons 0.10 kg 7.30E-04 kg
Array Stripper Use of Re-newable Materials
29.00 %
GHG Chemicals
PFCs 665.30 tons 0.013 kg 9.30E-05 kg
ODS
Loading Volume 0.05 tons 9.49E-07 kg 6.99E-09 kg
Energy
Total Energy 15,936,836.90 GJ 302,406.77 kJ 2,228.74 kJ
Total Energy for Produc-tion
4.133 Mio kWh 78.5 kWh 0.58 kWh
Purchased Electricity 15,276,372.10 GJ 289,874.23 kJ 2,136.37 kJ
Self-generated Solar Power
602,480.40 GJ 11,432.27 kJ 84.26 kJ
Wind Power 12,886.40 GJ 244.52 kJ 1.80 kJ
Natural Gas 44,479.10 GJ 844.01 kJ 6.22 kJ
LPG 606.90 GJ 11.52 kJ 0.085 kJ
Diesel 7.90 GJ 0.15 kJ 1.10E-03 kJ
Water
Total Water Used 27,244.60 megaliters 0,52 m3 3.81E-03 m3
Total Water Used for Production
25,000 megaliters 0.47 m3 3.46E-3 m3
Ground Water 527.70 megaliters 0.010 m3 7.38E-05 m3
Fresh Water 26,701.30 megaliters 0.51 m3 3.73E-03 m3
19
Totals (2015)
Per pro-duced m2
Fairphone 2 display
Rain Water 15.60 megaliters 2.96E-04 m3 2.18E-06 m3
Output
Scope 1 emissions (from PFCs)
310 kt CO2e 5.86 kg 0.043 kg CO2e
Scope 2 emissions (from purchased electricity)
247 kt CO2e 46.93 kg 0.35 kg CO2e
Gas Emissions
SOx 43.3 tons 0.00082 kg 6.06E-06 kg
NOx 65 tons 0.0012 kg 9.09E-06 kg
HP 2.7 tons 5.12E-05 kg 3.78E-07 kg
HCl 2.3 tons 4.36E-05 kg 3.22E-07 kg
VOCs 126.1 tons 0.0024 kg 1.76E-05 kg
Waste Water Discharge
Waste Water 20,909 megaliters 0.040 m3 2.92E-03 m3
COD 751.7 tons 0.014 kg 1.05E-04 kg
BOD 154.3 tons 0.0029 kg 2.16E-05 kg
TSS 233.7 tons 0.0044 kg 3.27E-05 kg
Production Water Recy-cle
Production Water Recy-cle Volume
120,886.2 megaliters 2.29 m3 1.69E-02 m3
Production Water Recy-cle Rate
88 %
Waste Output
Non-hazardous Waste 75,530.2 t 1.4332 kg 1.06E-02 kg
Hazardous waste 36,992.1 t 0.7019 kg 5.17E-03 kg
Electronics
Modelling is based on the specific smartphone display board similar to other printed circuit
boards (see section 3.1.9.3).
Backlight assembly:
Die size of LEDs per screen area is based on [Deubzer 2012] for a comparable tablet display
(see Table 3-3).
20
Table 3-3: Die area per display area [Deubzer 2012]
Backlight design (typical product)
Display diagonal Brightness [cd/m²]
Total die area per display area [mm²/cm²]
edge lit (tablet) 7" 350 0.0094
For the Fairphone 2 display of 73.7 cm2, this results in a die area of 0.0069 cm2.
Life cycle modelling of the LEDs is based on data for CMOS logic from [Boyd 2012] as it is
also described by [Zgola 2011]. For the details of the modeling, see section 3.1.9.4 for ICs.
Glass substrate
The production of the glass substrate is based on a data set by ecoinvent for LCD glass man-
ufacturing.
Liquid crystal
For the production of liquid crystal, a data set from ecoinvent “polarizer, liquid crystals and
color filters production, for liquid crystal display, GLO” is used. This data set does not cover
liquid crystal directly, but a mix of polarizer, liquid crystal and color filters together and is al-
ready quite old (late 1990s). However, it is the only available data set providing related data
on liquid crystal production.
Neglected
Not included is the production of input materials for the panel production (CF thinner, and array
stripper) as corresponding life cycle data is missing. According to Zgola (2011), these materials
have a low impact on the overall result of the display manufacturing.
3.1.6 Battery module
The Fairphone 2 includes a lithium cobalt oxide (LCO) battery. Therefore a specific LCO-bat-
tery data set was allocated which was developed by Fraunhofer IZM/TU Berlin for the German
Federal Environment Agency in 2015 [Clemm 2016]. The data set was based on primary data
from a manufacturer in China for an LCO battery of a laptop, but can be scaled to represent a
smartphone battery as detailed below.
The Fairphone 2 battery consists of two main components being the cell and the battery man-
agement system (BMS). In terms of environmental impacts, the cell is the largest contributor
to most impact categories, in particular the cathode, anode and electrolyte.
The material composition of the battery cell from the above mentioned study was found to be
comparable with the battery cell of the Fairphone 2 as provided in the BoM (see Table 3-4).
From the mass percentage ranges provided in the BoM, the midpoint value is considered.
Table 3-4: Mass percentage of the most important cell materials
Mass percentage of the cell
Material (function) Fairphone 2 BoM Clemm et al. 2016
LCO (cathode active material) 37 % 41 %
Graphite (anode active material) 24 % 20 %
LiPF6 (electrolyte) 14 % 14 %
Other materials 25 % 25 %
21
The total mass of the Fairphone battery is gravimetrically determined to be 39.8 g. According
to the Fairphone 2 BoM, the mass of the cell, including its packaging, is 38 g. Hence, the
assumed mass of the BMS is 1.8 g. The dataset for the LCO cell is scaled from the above
mentioned study by weight: The mass of one laptop battery cell (59.51 g) was scaled down to
38 g by factor 0.6385. The BMS was not found to be scalable, as the laptop BMS is designed
for more complex functionalities compared to the Fairphone 2 battery BMS, such as balancing
of several cells, and smart battery technology. Hence, a new dataset was created to model the
BMS according to the BoM and a visual inspection of the populated wiring board integrated
into the battery housing (cp. section Table 8-11).
In the baseline scenario model, the battery is included twice as it is assumed that during the
life cycle of three years the battery has to be replaced once (see section 3.2 for the detailed
assumptions).
3.1.7 Back cover
The back cover consists of the following parts:
Outer case
Battery pressure pad
Camera seal gasket
The casing consists mostly of polycarbonate (15.7 g) and thermoplastic polyurethane (4 g).
The detailed BoM with the assigned weight and life cycle data set for the back cover can be
found in the annex in Table 8-12.
3.1.8 Assembly process
The Fairphone 2 is assembled by Hi-P in China. Primary data regarding the energy consump-
tion was obtained with a questionnaire. According to Hi-P 4.698 kWh per product are used for
the assembly process. The electricity is grid electricity, so the Chinese energy grid mix from
the GaBi data base is used.
In comparison, according to Yamagouchi (2013) the energy consumption during the assembly
process is roughly 16 Wh/g phone. This same value was used in the Fairphone 1 LCA. For the
Fairphone 2 this would result in 2.688 kWh for the assembly, roughly half of the actual value.
Additionally, Hi-P states the use of 0.74 g alcohol, the use of cotton swaps (~ 1 per 100 prod-
ucts) and lint free wipers (~ 2 per 100 products). The alcohol is included as “benzyl alcohol
production” (an alcohol with low toxicity), the wipes are neglected in the inventory.
3.1.9 Cross-module approaches
The following sections describe the approaches which are used in a similar way in different
modules.
3.1.9.1 Cameras
The Fairphone 2 contains two cameras:
Front camera: 2MP CMOS Sensor, Sensor Type Omnivision OV2685 integrated in the top module
Rear camera: 8MP CMOS Sensor with flash, Sensor Type Omnivision OV8865 – Back Side Illuminated in the camera module
The total weight of the cameras is:
Front camera: 338 mg
Rear camera: 791 mg
22
For both cameras, a material declaration was available which was used for the modelling of
the mechanical parts, but adjusted to the measured weight (which did not fit the weight in the
material declaration) (see Table 8-6 and Table 8-7 in the annex). However, the main environ-
mental impact is expected to stem form the CMOS sensor IC. The manufacturer Omnivision
published the die size for the two ICs which were then modelled similar to the other ICs in the
Fairphone 2 (see section 3.1.9.4) [OV2685, 2015; OV8865, 2014]:
Front camera: die dimension (bigger size is used as worst case assumption)
o CSP5: 4454 μm x 4014 μm = 17.878 mm2
o COB: 4420 μm x 3980 μm = 17.592 mm2
Rear camera: die dimensions: 5850 μm x 5700 μm = 33.345 mm2
3.1.9.2 Connectors
Due to its modular design, the Fairphone 2 has more internal connectors than standard
smartphones. There are different types of connectors in the Fairphone 2:
Board-to-board connector (each module board)
Battery connector (mainboard)
MicroUSB connector (bottom module board)
MicroSD card connector (mainboard)
SIM card connector (two pieces on the mainboard)
Board-to-board connector
Each module board has a board-to-board connector linking the mainboard to the different mod-
ules. The connectors are gold-coated pogo pins produced by GSN in China:
backside of mainboard: 5 pins, open connector for add-ons or upgrades of the phone
top module: 32 pins
camera module: 32 pins
display module: 30 pins
bottom module: 18 pins
The following Table 3-5 shows the summarized material composition of the board-to-board
connectors according to the material declaration from GSN.
Table 3-5: Material composition of board-to-board connectors (totals) according to material declara-tions from GSN
Material Weight [mg]
Liquid Crystal Polymer 1146.00
Cu 1426.47
Zn 27.92
Ni 44.34
Au 14.48
Silicon 29.31
Phosphorus 17.59
Manganese 322.41
The counterparts on the module boards are Ni/Au contacts directly on the printed circuit
boards. For the inventory model, the amount of nickel and gold for the PCB material composi-
tion is used. As the material composition is derived from the whole PCB panel, the following
assumptions (based on the PCB layout drawings) are applied:
23
Ni/Au is only applied on the actual board area, not on the cut-offs
90 % of the Ni/Au on the module boards is associated to the board-to-board con-nectors, 10 % to conductive paths and other contacts
This results in the following amounts:
Top module board: 2.19 mg nickel, 0.058 mg gold
Display board: 2.19 mg nickel, 0.058 mg gold
Camera board: 2.19 mg nickel, 0.058 mg gold
Bottom module board: 5.325 mg nickel, 0.125 mg gold
Mainboard (contacts below pins): 17.45 mg nickel 0.3375 mg gold
Other connectors
The other connectors are also manufactured by GSN except for the MicroUSB connector,
which is manufactured by JAE. All connectors are modelled according to their material decla-
rations (see Table 8-3 and Table 8-4 in the annex).
3.1.9.3 Printed Circuit Boards
Standard procedure in LCA to reflect printed circuit boards (PCBs) is to use the outer rectan-
gular dimensions as produced panel area. However, this procedure can lead to under- or over-
estimation of the produced panel area:
For PCBs with an even rectangular shape, this procedure can lead to underestima-tions as cut-offs are neglected.
For PCBs with an unbalanced shape, this procedure can lead to overestimations as possible nesting of boards is neglected.
For the Fairphone 2 PCBs, the real size of the produced PCB panels was available and could
be used to allocate the correct produced panel area. The Fairphone 2 PCBs are produced on
three different panels (see Table 3-6).
Table 3-6: Allocation of PCB area
Panel Board Number of boards per panel
Width [mm]
Length [mm]
Number of layers
Size (outer di-mensions) [cm2]
Allocated size [cm2]
1
121 208 12 251.68
1 Mainboard 4 64.50 101.50
65.47 60.92
1 Antenna grounding 4 27.00 2.00
0.54 0.54
1 Antenna coaxial boards 4 11.00 13.30
1.46 1.46
2 143.00 87.25 4 124.77
Top module boards 4 54.20 13.40
7.26 12.58
Display boards 4 9.00 47.50
4.28 9.59
Camera boards 4 21.80 17.00 3.71 9.02
3
143.00 87.25 4 124.77
Bottom module boards 4 52.70 40.50 21.34 31.19
For panel 2 and 3, the standard procedure (using outer dimensions) would have let to under-
estimation of the total produced panel size. The resulting cut-offs were evenly allocated to all
24
produced boards on the panel. For panel 1, the standard procedure would have let to an over-
estimated panel size. The panel area was allocated as followed:
Antenna grounding and antenna coaxial board: outer dimensions of the board
Mainboard: Panel size minus the board area allocated to antenna grounding and antenna coaxial board.
For flexible printed circuit boards (FPCs) a data set of a 1-layer rigid PCB was applied as no
data set for FPCs is available. The data set was scaled per weight.
3.1.9.4 ICs
The production of semiconductors (logic ICs and memory) is an energy and resource intensive
process. However, not much environmental data is available. Data sets for semiconductors/
active components from GaBi and ecoinvent v3.1 are scaled per weight, which is not the main
parameter of the environmental impact, but rather the die size and technology node, i.e. tech-
nology generations.
Main sources for the environmental impact of semiconductors are Boyd (2012) and Schmidt
(2011).
Front-end processes
Boyd [2012] investigated in detail the carbon footprint for CMOS logic ICs (front-end pro-
cesses) for different technology nodes. The newest technology node covered by Boyd’s data
is 32 nm in 2013. The wafer size is 300 mm with 347 good chips per wafer (chip size:
140 mm2).
Table 3-7: Environmental impacts according to Boyd [2012] per cm2 die for the technology 32 nm
Energy [MJ]
GWP
[kg CO2e]
Photo-chemical smog
[kg NOx]
Acidifica-tion
[mol H+]
Eco-tox-icity [kg 2,4-D]
Human Health Cancer
[kg C6H6]
Human Health non cancer
[kg C7H7]
Front-End
Fab 33.6 0.9 0.006 0.356 0.030
2.444
Infrastructure (fab construction and equipment)
17.9 1.5 7.43E-03 3.86E-01 4.96E-05 7.36E-05 3.07E+00
Silicon 5.9 0.5 5.25E-03 3.03E-01 2.60E-02
2.08E+00
Chemicals 2.9 0.4
Fab direct emis-sions and EoL
2.51E-04 2.00E-01 4.70E-04 1.89E-05 1.00E+00
Regarding the direct PFC emissions, the German semiconductor industry reports under the
voluntary agreement to reduce non-carbon greenhouse gas emissions to a value of roughly
0.15 kg CO2e per cm² produced wafer area [ZVEI 2011]. In comparison, Schmidt [2011] pub-
lished for the reference year 2005 PFC emissions of 0.1 kg CO2e per cm² logic die (memory
dies have a lower value).
Back-end processes
According to the European Semiconductor Industry Association back-final energy consump-
tion has a share of 25 – 37 % depending on the packaging type. Therefore it is assumed, that
one third of the electricity consumption is for back-end and two third for front-end processes.
For the materials, it is assumed that the impact of front-end and back-end processes is more
or less the same. Similar assumption were made in the project “LCA to go” (2014).
25
Based on these assumptions, the figures presented in Table 3-8 result per cm2 die for the
technology node 32 nm.
26
Table 3-8: Front-end and back-end emissions per cm2 die for the technology node 32 nm
Energy
[MJ]
GWP
[kg CO2eq]
Photochemi-cal smog
[kg NOx]
Acidification
[mol H+]
Ecotoxicity [kg 2,4-D]
Human Health Can-cer
[kg C6H6]
Human Health non cancer
[kg C7H7]
Eutrophica-tion to air
[kg N]
Eutrophica-tion to water [kg N]
Front-End
Fab 33.6 0.9 0.006 0.356 0.030
2.444 2.22E-04
infrastructure 17.9 1.5 7.43E-03 3.86E-01 4.96E-05 7.36E-05 3.07E+00 2.52E-04
silicon 5.9 0.5 5.25E-03 3.03E-01 2.60E-02
2.08E+00 1.89E-04
chemicals 2.9 0.4
fab direct emissions and EoL (incl. PFC emissions)
0.15 2.51E-04 2.00E-01 4.70E-04 1.89E-05 1.00E+00 2.89E-06 9.86E-03
Totals Front end
60.3 3.4 1.91E-02 1.2 0.1 0.0 8.6 0.0 0.0
Back End
Back End en-ergy
25.7 1.2 6.80E-03 0.4 1.53E-02 3.68E-05 2.8 2.37E-04
Back End ma-terials
8.9 0.9 5.25E-03 0.3 2.60E-02 0.00E+00 2.1 1.89E-04
Total Back-end
34.6 2.0 1.20E-02 0.7 4.12E-02 3.68E-05 4.8 4.25E-04 0.0
Totals 94.9 5.4 3.11E-02 1.9 9.82E-02 1.29E-04 13.4 1.09E-03 9.86E-03
27
The ICs on the different boards in the Fairphone 2 is modelled according to the data described
before. Thereby it will be distinguished between the CPU, memory (DRAM), storage (flash)
and other ICs.
CPU
The CPU of the Fairphone 2 is the Snapdragon 801 from Qualcomm with 4 cores, 28 nm
technology node.
The die size of 111.28 mm2 was identified through x-rays and grinding of the chip.
The front-end processes and back-end energy is modelled according to the data described
before (Table 3-8) scaled according to the die size. The back-end materials are modelled
based on the material composition derived from the data sheet.
Memory
The memory is a 2 GB FBGA, LPDDR3 chip from Samsung.
The die size of 68.63 mm2 was identified through x-rays and grinding of the chip.
The front-end processes and back-end energy is modelled according to the data described
before (Table 3-8) scaled according to the die size. The back-end materials are modelled
based on the material composition derived from the data sheet.
Storage
The Fairphone 2 has a 32 GB NAND flash storage by Samsung.
The die size of 93.64 mm2 was identified through x-rays and grinding of the chip.
The front-end processes and back-end energy will be modelled according to the data de-
scribed before (Table 3-8) scaled according to the die size. The back-end materials are mod-
elled based on the material composition derived from the data sheet.
Other ICs
For the other ICs in the Fairphone 2, the die size was identified either through x-rays or calcu-
lated based on the silicon weight from the data sheets, if this data was available. The front-
end and back-end processes is modelled according to the data described before (Table 3-8)
scaled according to the overall assumed die size.
When no information on the amount of silicon was available and x-rays were not revealing, a
standard data set from ecoinvent for active components scaled per weight was used.
The following resulting die sizes were used:
Top module board: 0.019 cm2
Display board: 0.262 cm2
Mainboard:
o 0.933 cm2
o 0.162 g unspecified ICs
3.1.10 Packaging
Packaging covers the final sales packaging and the bulk packaging for transport to the distri-
bution hub. Further upstream packaging is not included in the analysis.
3.1.10.1 Bulk packaging (to distribution hub)
The bulk packaging consists of the following parts:
28
Table 3-9: Bulk packaging of the Fairphone 2 to the distribution hub
Product part Item packing method Weight shipping box (per component4) [g]
Fairphone 2 Unit in bubble plastic bag (not closed) inserted in Brown Cardboard box with separator
30.75
Back cover Unit In plastic bag with Zip closure inserted in Brown Card-board box with separator
30.65
Battery Unit In plastic bag sealed, transparent inserted in inner box of card board in bulk of 8. Inner box inserted in Brown Cardboard box
15.85
For the inventory it is assumed that the packaging weight consists of 20 % plastic and 80 %
card board, resulting in the following weights:
61.8 g card board
15.4 g plastic
For consistency reasons with the Fairphone 1 LCA, the same data sets from the ecoinvent
database were applied for card board and plastic:
“Packaging film, LDPE, at plant [RER]”
“packaging, corrugated board, mixed fiber, single wall, at plant [RER]”
Packaging of the individual components to the final assembly processes is not taken into ac-
count in the inventory.
3.1.10.2 Sales packaging
The individual sales packaging consists of the following parts:
Table 3-10: Individual sales packaging
Quantity in box
Weight [g]
Supplier Supplier country
Material type
FP2 User Guide Combo Package v2
1 33 Ecodrukkers NL Paper
FP2 White Box Bottom 1 15 Paxpring NL Paperfoam®
FP2 White Box Lid 1 14 Paxpring NL Paperfoam®
FP2 White Box Tray 1 13 Paxpring NL Paperfoam®
FP2 White Box External Wrap (Blue ribbon)
1 1 Paxpring NL Plastic and glue strip
FP2 Phone IMEI Label 1 0.5 Rhenus NL Paper label
FP2 Shipping Box Outer 1 78 Paxpring NL Brown Cardboard
FP2 Shipping Box Tray 1 13 Paxpring NL Brown Cardboard
FP2 Shipping Box Closing Tape
1 0.5 Paxpring NL Brown Cardboard
Logistics Delivery Note A4 1 2 Rhenus NL Paper
Courier Shipping label over Shipping Box
1 1 Rhenus NL Paper label
Totals
42
Paperfoam®
36.5
Paper
91.5
Cardboard
1
Plastic and glue strip
4 The total weight of the shipping box is divided by the number of items per shipping box.
29
The packaging was modelled with the following data sets from GaBi and ecoinvent:
Paper: recycled paper
Cardboard: corrugated board
Plastic and glue strip: neglected
The Paperfoam® consists of 70 % potato starch and 20 % cellulose fibers. A GWP value was
available from a separate packaging LCA (cradle to gate)5, giving a result of 5.9 g CO2e for the
42 g Paperfoam® used. Within this study, the GWP value of the existing LCA is used. The other
impact categories are modelled according to the material composition.
3.2 Use phase
The following use pattern is applied for the Fairphone 2:
Table 3-11: Summary of use-phase assumptions (baseline scenario)
Assumptions
Time in use 3 years
Use pattern Daily charging
7 h/d no-load losses though plugged in charger
o 20 % of users: 20 h/d
o 30 % of users:10 h/d
Charger specifications Charger currently sold by Fairphone B.V.:
Efficiency: 69 %
No-load losses: 30 mW
Battery specifications 2420 mAh
3,8 V
Electricity consumption 4.9 kWh/a
14.8 kWh in 3 years
As a baseline scenario, a use time of three years is assumed for the Fairphone 2. For the
battery a lifetime of two years is assumed resulting in a use of two batteries over the lifetime
of three years.
Three years use time is assumed in LCA/Carbon Footprints of several smartphone manufac-
turers (e.g. Apple 2016, Nokia, Sony 2008, HTC 2013, Blackberry 2014) and therefore allows
a basic comparability in that aspect.
Daily charging reflects an intensive use of the Fairphone 2 and might be closer to a worst-case
assumption than to the average user. However, this use pattern is applied (if stated at all) also
by other smartphone manufacturers (e.g. [Apple 2016] and [Blackberry 2014]) and therefore
allows a basic comparability in that aspect.
Besides the electricity consumption caused by the charging itself, it is assumed that some
users leave the charger plugged after charging and thereby cause no-load losses. According
to a user survey conducted for the Fairphone 1 in 2014, 19.4 % of the users leave the charger
5 The results, but not the whole study, of the packaging LCA were provided by Fairphone B.V. within the
context of this Fairphone 2 LCA.
30
“always” plugged after charging, 28.9 % “sometimes”, and 51.7 % “never”. Although this sur-
vey was for the Fairphone 1, it is assumed for this study that the user behavior is more or less
the same. Therefore the following rounded figures are applied:
20 % of the users leave the charger “always” plugged: 20 h/d
30 % of the users leave the charger “sometimes” plugged. 10 h/d
The average charger is plugged in without charging for 7 h/d.
The Fairphone 2 is not delivered with a charger as many users already have universal chargers
at home and therefore automatically delivering the charger with the phone would only generate
more waste. So a charger has to be purchased additionally or users can use one they already
possess. Therefore the production of the charger is not included in the LCA. Nevertheless, for
the use phase, specifications of a charger have to be assumed.
Users will use chargers already existing in their homes from other devices, buy the Fairphone
charger or purchase a new charger somewhere else. New chargers are mostly more efficient
than older ones, partly fulfilling the up-to-date requirements of the External Power Supply Code
of Conduct v5 requiring no-load losses < 0.075 W and efficiency > 75 % for products sold in
2016 [CoC EPS 2013]. However, older chargers have lower efficiencies and higher no-load
losses. Some older devices might not even fulfill the current legal requirements according to
Ecodesign Implementing Measure for External Power Supplies (< 0.3 W no-load losses and
efficiency > 69 % at 6 W) [EC 278/2009]. Therefore, the charger currently sold by Fairphone6
seems like a good proxy.
An energy mix reflecting the distribution of sales within Europe is applied (see Table 3-12).
Thereby, countries with less than 1 % of the sales are neglected.
Table 3-12: Regional distribution of sales used for the energy mix in the use phase
Country Part of Sales
Austria 5.61%
Belgium 5.53%
Switzerland 15.91%
Germany 36.74%
Denmark 1.28%
Spain 2.13%
France 6.55%
Great Britain 11.05%
Italy 1.44%
Netherlands 6.56%
Sweden 7.19%
3.3 End-of-Life
For the baseline scenario it is assumed that the Fairphone 2 is properly recycled at its end-of-
life (EoL). In other words, 100 % of the device in the modelled product system enters the re-
6 Uout: 1200 mA, Iout: 5 V, No load power: < 30 mW / < 150 mW, Efficiency: > 69 % (CoC v 4), online:
http://www.salcomp.com/SalcompDocuments/Cosmos6W.pdf
31
cycling process chain. To date, the EoL procedures for smartphones have not been fully es-
tablished due to a lack of relevant numbers of devices reaching the recycling facilities. Hence,
a number of assumptions was made to model the EoL.
It was assumed that the entire phone is disposed of by the user at an unspecified point of
collection. The unit is then transported from the collection point to a pre-processing facility,
where the phone is depolluted (i.e. removal of the battery from the unit). For the depollution
process, the separation rate was assumed to be 100 %, i.e. no losses are generated in the
separation process. After depollution, the phone unit (without battery) is transported to a recy-
cling facility for metals recovery without further dismantling steps.
As an approximation for the EoL transportation distances, the assumptions from the Fairphone
1 LCA (Güvendik 2014), based on (Hischier 2007), were adopted:
Total transportation distance from user to recycling plant: 1500 km
Mode of transportation is by lorry (75 % by distance) and by train (25 % by distance)
The modelling of the metals recovery processes was based on the process flow of recycling
of metals from electronics scraps reported by Umicore (Hagelüken 2006). The relevant pro-
cesses were identified to be the
Copper smelter process
Electrowinning process
Precious metal refinery
Other processes were not considered relevant for metals recovery from the Fairphone 2 (i.e.
sulfuric acid plant, lead blast furnace, lead refinery, special metals refinery for In, Se, Te re-
covery).
The electrowinning process yields secondary copper and nickel. The precious metal refining
yields gold, silver, and palladium. The amount of recovered metals from the Fairphone 2 were
approximated via data provided in the BoM (screws, solder paste, display frame, shields) and
material data sheets on several components (display, mainboard, speaker, SIM card, micro
USB, micro SD, vibration motor). The assumed recycling rates per element are 95 % for gold,
silver, palladium and copper, and 90 % for nickel, based on Chancerel et al. (2016).
The batteries are treated at a dedicated battery recycling plant. At the plant, the batteries are
firstly sorted according to their chemistry. For the sorting, it is assumed that 95 % of the bat-
teries are sorted correctly [Sommer 2013]. During the recycling of the lithium-ion battery, it is
assumed that 95 % of the contained cobalt and copper are recovered. All other materials are
assumed to be lost.
As two batteries are consumed in the base case, the treatment of two EoL batteries is taken
into account, both in terms of environmental burdens and recovered materials.
All burdens and all credit associated with the EoL was allocated to the modelled life cycle of
the Fairphone 2.
3.4 Transport
Transport processes take place in all life cycle phases (see Figure 3-3), but the general mod-
elling happens according to the same rules. Therefore, it is summarized in this individual sub-
section.
32
Figure 3-3: Life cycle phases and transport processes of the Fairphone 2
Transport will be separated into the following parts:
Transport of components to final assembly
Transport from final assembly to distribution hub in the Netherlands
Transportation to customers
Thereby the weight of the components or final product incl. packaging, the transported dis-
tance, and mode of transportation (air, land, sea) are allocated to calculate the “t*km per mode
of transportation” which than will be connected with the corresponding data set.
The transport processes occurring within the EOL processes are included in the dedicated
EOL model.
3.4.1 Transport to final assembly
Primary data regarding the packaging of the components to final assembly could not be re-
trieved. Therefore a factor will be applied on the component weight to estimate the additional
weight for the packaging. Within the Fairphone 1 LCA, packaging factors were estimated
based on exemplary weighing of a capacitor [Güvendik 2014]. The established factors seem
reasonable also for the Fairphone 2:
Components with weight > 0.5 g: factor 0.1
Components with weight < 0.5 g: factor 1.94
For the mode of transportation the following assumption are made:
Transportation within China: land (truck)
International transportation: air, if applicable additional transportation from and to the airport per truck
For some manufacturers, the specific production facility could not be identified. For the related
parts a default value for the transported distance of 500 km per truck was assigned.
The corresponding transport distances result in:
Truck transport: 24.157 kg*km
Air transport: 0.811 kg*km
3.4.2 Transport to distribution hub
The Fairphone 2 is transported in three parts to the distribution hub in Netherlands:
Phone
Back cover
Battery
The phone and back cover is transported from the place of final assembly and the battery from
the battery supplier 3Sun (see Table 3-13). The packaging weight is based on information from
33
Fairphone B.V. including the package of parts and overall pallets. Transport of the battery is
calculated twice as it is assumed that two batteries are used over the life cycle of three years.
Table 3-13: Transportation to distribution hub
Component from to Mode of
transporta-
tion
Distance
[km]
Compo-
nent
weight [g]
Packag-
ing weight
[g]
Total
weight
[g]
kg*km
Phone Suzhou Shanghai Land (truck) 55 114.5 30.75 145.3 8.0
Shanghai Amsterdam Air 8860 114.5 30.75 145.3 1286.9
Amsterdam Ekkersrijt Land (truck) 120 114.5 30.75 145.3 17.4
Back cover Suzhou Shanghai Land (truck) 55 20.1 30.65 50.8 2.8
Shanghai Amsterdam Air 8860 20.1 30.65 50.8 449.6
Amsterdam Ekkersrijt Land (truck) 120 20.1 30.65 50.8 6.1
Battery Shenzhen Shanghai Land (truck) 300 38 15.85 53.8 16.2
Shanghai Amsterdam Air 8860 38 15.85 53.8 477.1
Amsterdam Ekkersrijt Land (truck) 120 38 15.85 53.8 6.5
Total
Air
2213.6
Total
Land (truck)
56.9
3.4.3 Transport to customer
The Fairphone 2 is shipped within Europe. The transportation distance is estimated based on
the split of sales. The transported weight includes the weight of the phone, packaging and
manual. It is assumed that transport within Europe takes place via truck. Fast delivery, which
normally means air transport, is not included.
Table 3-14: Transportation to customer
Country Share of
Sales [%]
Distance [km] Total weight
[g]
kg*km kg*km
(weighted)
Austria 5.61% 1000 344 34.4 19.3
Belgium 5.53% 200 344 68.8 3.8
Switzerland 15.91% 750 344 258 41.1
Germany 36.74% 450 344 154.8 56.9
Denmark 1.28% 800 344 275.2 3.5
Spain 2.13% 1800 344 619.2 13.2
France 6.55% 800 344 275.2 18.0
Great Britain 11.05% 800 344 275.2 30.4
Italy 1.44% 1500 344 516 7.4
Netherlands 6.56% 100 344 34.4 2.3
Sweden 7.19% 1600 344 550.4 39.6
Total
235.5
34
Additionally, a separate transport of a second battery is assumed over the life cycle. Thereby
the same distances and share of sales is assumed with a product weight of 38 g (plus the
same weight as packaging) resulting in 52.0 kg*km truck transport.
35
4 Impact Assessment
Based on material flows defined in the LCI, the life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) will be
carried out according to the recognized CML methodology [CML 2001] using LCA software
GaBi. For the following impact categories the results will be displayed and discussed in detail:
Climate change:
o Global Warming Potential (GWP) 100 years
Resource depletion:
o Abiotic resource depletion (ADP) elements
o ADP fossil
Human toxicity:
o Human Toxicity Potential
Ecotoxicity:
o Terrestrial Ecotoxicity Potential
Table 4-1: Impact categories and category indicators according to [CML 2001]
Impact category Category indicators
GWP 100 years kg CO2 equivalents
ADP elements kg Sb equivalents
ADP fossil MJ
Human Toxicity Potential kg DCB equivalents
Terrestrial Ecotoxicity Potential kg DCB equivalents
Normalization, grouping, and weighting of the results (optional steps in the impact assessment
of an LCA) will not be applied.
4.1 Definition of impact categories
For the impact categories covered in this LCA study, the following definitions from CML are
used:
Global Warming Potential (GWP) 100 years: “Global warming is considered as a global effect. Global warming - or the “greenhouse effect” - is the effect of increasing temperature in the lower atmosphere. The lower atmosphere is normally heated by incoming radiation from the outer atmosphere (from the sun). A part of the radiation is normally reflected from the surface of the earth (land or oceans). The content of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other “greenhouse” gasses (e.g. methane (CH4), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), chlorofluorocarbons etc.) in the atmosphere reflect the infrared (IR)-radiation, resulting in the greenhouse effect i.e. an increase of temperature in the lower atmosphere to a level above normal. […]The GWP for greenhouse gases is expressed as CO2-equivalents, i.e. the effects are expressed relatively to the effect of CO2.” [Stranddorf 2005]
Resource depletion: “The model of abiotic resource depletion […] is a function of the annual extraction rate and geological reserve of a resource. In the model as pres-ently defined, the ultimate reserve is considered the best estimate of the ultimately extractable reserve and also the most stable parameter for the reserve parameter. However, data for this parameter will by definition never be available. As a proxy, we suggest the ultimate reserve (crustal content).” [Oers 2016]
36
o Abiotic resource depletion (ADP) elements: “The impact category for ele-ments is a heterogeneous group, consisting of elements and compounds with a variety of functions (all functions being considered of equal im-portance).” [Oers 2016]
o ADP fossil: “The resources in the impact category of fossil fuels are fuels like oil, natural gas, and coal, which are all energy carriers and assumed to be mutually substitutable. As a consequence, the stock of the fossil fuels is formed by the total amount of fossil fuels, expressed in Megajoules (MJ).” [Oers 2016]
Human Toxicity Potential: “The normalisation references for human toxicity via the environment should reflect the total human toxic load in the reference area caused by human activity, i.e. the potential risk connected to exposure from the environment (via air, soil, provisions and drinking water) as a result of emissions to the environ-ment from industrial production, traffic, power plants etc. Ideally, all emissions of substances potentially affecting human health should be quantified and assessed. However, the multitude of known substances (>100.000) and an even larger number of emission sources logically makes that approach unfeasible. The inventory used for calculating the normalisation references is therefore based on available emission registrations for substances, which are believed to contribute significantly to the overall load.” [Stranddorf 2005]
Terrestrial Ecotoxicity Potential: “The impact category ecotoxicity covers the possi-ble effects of toxic substances released during the life cycle of a product to the en-vironment. The sources of toxicants are quite different depending on the type of environment as well as the methods used in the assessment of the impact. Conse-quently, the impact on aquatic and terrestrial systems are usually considered sepa-rately. In principle, the normalisation reference for ecotoxicology includes all toxic substances emitted to the environment due to human activities, and it requires ex-tensive data on all types of emissions. In general, however, only few data on envi-ronmental releases of toxic substances are available, and the normalisation there-fore relies on extrapolations from a relatively limited set of data. The normalisation reference includes the following emission types: […] Terrestrial environment: Pesticide use, Agricultural use of sewage sludge, Atmos-pheric deposition of metals and dioxins” [Stranddorf 2005]
4.2 Results
The results for the different impact categories can be found in Table 4-2. The main driver for
all impact categories is the production phase causing mostly more than ¾th of the impact.
Transport, EoL, and use phase have a comparably small influence (except for the impact cat-
egory ADP fossil). The EoL results are even negative meaning a positive effect on the overall
life cycle, which can be seen especially for the impact category ADP elements.7
7 The negative impact of the recycling processes leads to an impact above 100 % for the other life cycle
phases.
37
Figure 4-1: Relative impacts of the different life cycle phases per impact category
Table 4-2: Results per life cycle phase
Impact category Unit Total Production EoL Use Transport
GWP kg CO2e 43.85 35.98 -1.11 5.98 3.00
100.0% 82.1% -2.5% 13.6% 6.8%
ADP elements kg Sb-e 6.09E-04 1.48E-03 -8.71E-04 2.66E-06 6.05E-07
100.0% 242.5% -143.0% 0.4% 0.1%
ADP fossil MJ 241.65 148.03 -12.85 63.46 43.01
100.0% 61.3% -5.3% 26.3% 17.8%
Humantox kg DCB-e 10.11 8.35 -0.81 0.24 2.32
100.0% 82.7% -8.0% 2.3% 23.0%
Ecotox kg DCB-e 1.08E-01 1.07E-01 -6.87E-03 5.00E-03 3.18E-03
100.0% 98.8% -6.4% 4.6% 2.9%
4.3 Contribution Analysis
4.3.1 Production
In Figure 4-2, the results of the production phase are displayed per module (plus final assembly
and packaging which are also assigned to the production phase). It can be seen that the main
driver is the core module with the mainboard for most impact categories (see Table 4-3). The
core module including the display contains the biggest PCB, the major share of electronic
components (incl. CPU, storage, and memory), and the main part of the board-to-board con-
nectors (nickel-gold coated pins).
For ADP fossil and Ecotoxicity, the assembly process itself is also a main driver. This is due
to the fact that the impact category ADP fossil is driven mainly by energy consumption (see
also the definition of the impact categories in section 4.1). Also Ecotoxicity is driven by the
energy consumption (assembly process) and PCB manufacturing.
-150%
-100%
-50%
0%
50%
100%
150%
200%
250%
Production EoL Use Transport
GWP
ADP elements
ADP fossil
Humantox
Ecotox
38
Figure 4-2: Relative impacts of the different modules of the production phase, impact category GWP
Figure 4-3: Relative impacts of the production phase per module and impact category
The main impact of the mainboard is caused by the ICs and the PCB, the passive components
and connectors have a minor impact (except for the impact category ADP elements, see Figure
4-4 and Figure 4-5).
Assembly; 13.4%
Battery module; 5.4%
Display module; 7.5%
Packaging; 0.6%Camera
module; 5.4% Top module;
3.6%
Back cover; 0.2%Bottom
module; 1.5%
Core module; 62.5%
0%10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%
GWP
ADP elements
ADP fossil
Humantox
Ecotox
39
Figure 4-4: Relative impacts for the mainboard, impact category: GWP
Figure 4-5: Relative impacts of the mainboard per impact category
Also across the modules, the PCBs and ICs have a major impact on the result. The passive
electronic components have a small overall impact (see Table 4-5, Figure 4-6 and Figure 4-7).
An exception is only the impact category ADP elements, where the board-to-board connectors
cause the main part of the overall impact. This is caused by the high amount of gold used for
the contacts in the connectors.
CPU; 22.8%
Flash; 19.4%
RAM; 14.6%
other ICs; 23.2%
Passive components;
1.5%
PCB; 14.1%
BtB Connectors;
4.1%
Rest; 0.2%
0%10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90% GWP
ADP elements
ADP fossil
Humantox
Ecotox
40
Figure 4-6: Relative impacts of the different component types, impact category GWP
IC manufacturing is a highly energy intensive process (see also Table 3-7 in section 3.1.9.4)
as e.g. production takes place in clean rooms, high-purity materials and process gases are
used, etc. This is reflected in the fact that the ICs cause the major share of the production
impact for the impact category GWP.
Figure 4-7: Relative impacts of the different component type per impact category
The data set used for the ICs does not cover the impact categories ADP elements and ADP
fossil (only the material for the back-end processes for CPU, memory and storage, see section
3.1.9.4). Therefore, the impact of the ICs is underrepresented for the ICs and the relative im-
pact of the other components (e.g. PCB in Figure 4-5 and Figure 4-7) is too high. ADP elements
is driven by the materials of the different components (e.g. gold and copper in the PCBs and
connectors). Many of these materials can be recovered in the recycling process (see section
4.3.3), but the impact for the processing of these components is only marginally visible in this
impact category.
Packaging; 0.6% Assembly;
13.4%
PCBs; 10.9%
ICs (total); 53.8%
passive Comp.; 1.0%
Display; 1.9%
Battery; 2.7%
BtB Connectors;
2.6% Rest; 13.2%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60% GWP
ADP elements
ADP fossil
Humantox
Ecotox
41
Table 4-3: Results of the production phase per module
Impact category
Unit Production Assembly Battery module
Display module
Packaging Camera module
Top module Back cover Bottom module
Core mod-ule
GWP kg CO2e 35.98 4.81 1.96 2.68 0.20 1.93 1.29 0.09 0.53 22.48
13.4% 5.4% 7.5% 0.6% 5.4% 3.6% 0.2% 1.5% 62.5%
ADP ele-ments
kg Sb-e 1.48E-03 1.94E-07 6.39E-05 2.73E-05 1.61E-06 1.03E-05 4.81E-05 3.69E-07 4.33E-05 1.28E-03
0.0% 4.3% 1.9% 0.1% 0.7% 3.3% 0.0% 2.9% 86.8%
ADP fossil MJ 148.03 49.89 19.31 12.11 3.60 1.61 2.52 1.81 5.65 51.54
33.7% 13.0% 8.2% 2.4% 1.1% 1.7% 1.2% 3.8% 34.8%
Humantox kg DCB-e 8.35 1.80 1.14 0.55 0.06 0.14 0.15 2.57E-03 0.39 4.11
21.6% 13.6% 6.6% 0.7% 1.7% 1.8% 0.0% 4.7% 49.2%
Ecotox kg DCB-e 1.07E-01 4.63E-02 6.60E-03 9.63E-03 1.49E-03 1.17E-03 1.71E-03 8.58E-05 5.55E-03 3.40E-02
43.5% 6.2% 9.0% 1.4% 1.1% 1.6% 0.1% 5.2% 31.9%
Table 4-4: Results of the production of the mainboard
Impact category
Unit Mainboard CPU Flash RAM other ICs IC totals Passive components
PCB BtB Con-nectors
Rest
GWP kg CO2e 22.26 5.09 4.32 3.26 5.16 17.83 0.33 3.13 0.92 0.05
100.0% 22.8% 19.4% 14.6% 23.2% 80.1% 1.5% 14.1% 4.1% 0.2%
ADP ele-ments
kg Sb-e 1.27E-03 4.47E-07 3.27E-05 1.03E-04 1.00E-04 2.37E-04 4.60E-05 1.89E-04 7.76E-04 2.00E-05
100.0% 0.0% 2.6% 8.1% 7.9% 18.7% 3.6% 14.9% 61.2% 1.6%
ADP fossil MJ 48.85 0.02 0.40 1.25 1.37 3.05 3.94 31.79 9.52 0.54
100.0% 0.0% 0.8% 2.6% 2.8% 6.2% 8.1% 65.1% 19.5% 1.1%
Humantox kg DCB-e 3.97 0.31 0.26 0.20 1.32 2.10 0.59 1.14 0.08 0.07
100.0% 7.8% 6.6% 5.0% 33.3% 52.7% 14.8% 28.6% 2.0% 1.9%
Ecotox kg DCB-e 3.18E-02 1.90E-05 5.08E-05 1.58E-04 2.59E-03 2.82E-03 3.68E-03 2.34E-02 1.21E-03 6.52E-04
100.0% 0.1% 0.2% 0.5% 8.2% 8.9% 11.6% 73.7% 3.8% 2.1%
42
Table 4-5. Results per component type – production phase
Impact Category
Unit Total Packaging Assembly PCBs ICs (total) passive Comp.
Display Battery BtB Con-nectors
Rest
GWP kg CO2-e 35.98 0.20 4.81 3.93 19.34 0.36 0.67 0.98 0.94 4.75
0.6% 13.4% 10.9% 53.8% 1.0% 1.9% 2.7% 2.6% 13.2%
ADP ele-ments
kg Sb-e 1.48E-03 1.61E-06 1.94E-07 2.41E-04 2.37E-04 5.27E-05 2.28E-07 3.19E-05 7.92E-04 1.22E-04
0.1% 0.0% 16.3% 16.0% 3.6% 0.0% 2.2% 53.6% 8.2%
ADP fossil MJ 148.03 3.60 49.89 39.94 3.05 4.34 6.11 9.65 9.72 21.72
2.4% 33.7% 27.0% 2.1% 2.9% 4.1% 6.5% 6.6% 14.7%
Humantox kg DCB-e 8.35 0.06 1.80 1.40 2.18 0.67 0.22 0.57 0.08 1.38
0.7% 21.6% 16.8% 26.0% 8.0% 2.6% 6.8% 1.0% 16.5%
Ecotox kg DCB-e 1.07E-01 1.49E-03 4.63E-02 2.93E-02 2.82E-03 4.10E-03 5.50E-03 3.30E-03 1.23E-03 1.25E-02
1.4% 43.5% 27.5% 2.6% 3.9% 5.2% 3.1% 1.2% 11.7%
43
4.3.2 Use phase
The use phase emissions cause a smaller share of the life cycle emissions of the Fairphone 2.
Within the use phase, emissions caused by Germany have a share of about 50 % while making
up about 37 % of the sales (compare Figure 4-8 and Figure 4-9).
The effect that the relative environmental impact differs from the share of sales is caused by
the different energy grid mixes which exist in the countries across Europe. For instance, the
German energy mix causes more emissions than the European average. Therefore, the rela-
tive environmental impact is higher than the share of sales. In contrast, the Swedish energy
grid mix has very low GHG emissions leading to a significantly lower share in the environmental
impact than the share of sales.
Figure 4-8: GHG emissions of the use phase per country
Figure 4-9: Share of sales per country
There are no major differences regarding the impact per country between the different impact
categories (see Table 4-6).
Austria; 4.5%
Belgium; 3.3%
Switzerland; 6.0%
Germany; 55.1%
Denmark; 1.0%
Spain; 2.3%
France; 1.6%
Great Britain; 15.5%
Italy; 1.7%
Netherlands; 8.3%
Sweden; 0.8%
Austria; 5.6%
Belgium; 5.5%
Switzerland; 15.9%
Germany; 36.7%Denmark;
1.3%
Spain; 2.1%
France; 6.6%
Great Britain; 11.0%
Italy; 1.4%
Netherlands; 6.6%
Sweden; 7.2%
44
Figure 4-10: Relative impacts of the use phase per country and impact category
4.3.3 EoL
The EoL has for most impact categories a low impact on the overall life cycle. The results are
negative for all impact categories, meaning the recycling leads to an environmental benefit
(see Table 4-8). Within the EoL model, the energy consuming processes (transportation, smel-
ter processes) have a negative environmental impact, while recovery of secondary metals (Co
from battery recycling, gold recovery from precious metals refining) result in a positive impact
(credit for avoided metals production). The negative and positive impacts are roughly bal-
anced, resulting in considerably low overall results across all impact categories (see Figure
4-11) except ADP elements where the recycling is strongly positive (see Figure 4-12).
The strongly positive effect (meaning negative result) is connected to the gold. The main im-
pact of ADP elements is predominantly caused by the use of gold. However, the assumed
recycling rate of gold is high (95 % according to Chancerel et al. (2014)). Besides, within this
study it is assumed that the 100 % of the Fairphone 2 – or in other words all phones – are
recycled. The impact of ADP elements is mainly influenced by material consumption of non-
fuel resources (e.g. coal, oil, etc.). So the energy input needed for the recycling process as
such is almost not reflected in this impact category. These effects together lead to the strongly
positive effect of recycling for the impact category ADP elements.
45
Figure 4-11: Impacts of the EoL phase per process for the impact category GWP
Figure 4-12: Impacts of the EoL phase per process for the impact category ADP elements
4.3.4 Transport
The transportation phase emissions cause a smaller share of the overall life cycle emissions
of the Fairphone 2. The highest influence of the transportation phase can be seen for the im-
pact category human toxicity.
Figure 4-13 shows the influence of the transport processes to assembly, to the distribution
hub, and to the customer.
-1.2
-1.0
-0.8
-0.6
-0.4
-0.2
0.0
0.2
GW
P [
kg C
O2
e]
-1.0E-03
-9.0E-04
-8.0E-04
-7.0E-04
-6.0E-04
-5.0E-04
-4.0E-04
-3.0E-04
-2.0E-04
-1.0E-04
0.0E+00
1.0E-04
AD
P e
lem
ents
[kg
SB
-e]
46
Figure 4-13: Relative impact of transportation phases “to assembly”, “to distribution”, and “to cus-tomer”, impact category: GWP
The main influence from the transport processes is caused by the air transport. Truck transport
has a smaller influence, which results in the fact, that the transport to customers has a small
relative impact (only truck transport assumed) and transport to the distribution hub a high im-
pact (oversea air transport) (see Figure 4-14).
Figure 4-14: Relative impact of the mode of transportation, impact category GWP
There are no major differences between the impact categories (see Table 4-7).
Transport to assembly;
0.3%
Transport to distribution hub; 98.3%
Transport to customer;
1.3%
Truck; 1.7%
Air, intercontinental;
98.2%
Air, local; 0.05%
47
Figure 4-15: Relative impact of the transportation phases “to assembly”, “to distribution”, and “to customer” per impact category
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
Transport toassembly
Transport todistribution hub
Transport tocustomer
GWP
ADP elements
ADP fossil
Humantox
Ecotox
48
Table 4-6: Results of the use phase
Impact category
Unit Use Austria Belgium Switzer-land
Germany Denmark Spain France Great Britain
Italy Nether-lands
Sweden
GWP kg CO2e 5.98 0.27 0.20 0.36 3.29 0.06 0.14 0.09 0.93 0.10 0.50 0.05
4.45% 3.34% 5.99% 55.09% 0.99% 2.26% 1.55% 15.51% 1.74% 8.31% 0.77%
ADP ele-ments
kg Sb-e 2.68E-06 1.65E-07 1.22E-07 3.83E-07 1.48E-06 2.70E-08 5.67E-08 9.83E-08 8.19E-08 5.49E-08 9.57E-08 1.15E-07
6.17% 4.57% 14.29% 55.18% 1.01% 2.12% 3.67% 3.06% 2.05% 3.57% 4.31%
ADP fos-sil
MJ 63.46 2.85 2.60 3.38 32.52 0.60 1.57 1.09 11.21 1.31 6.03 0.31
4.49% 4.10% 5.32% 51.24% 0.94% 2.48% 1.72% 17.67% 2.06% 9.49% 0.48%
Humantox kg DCB-e 2.36E-01 9.83E-03 9.83E-03 1.84E-02 1.09E-01 2.58E-03 6.67E-03 9.44E-03 4.40E-02 3.61E-03 1.44E-02 7.95E-03
4.17% 4.17% 7.79% 46.29% 1.09% 2.83% 4.00% 18.65% 1.53% 6.12% 3.37%
Ecotox kg DCB-e 5.00E-03 2.74E-04 1.89E-04 3.47E-04 2.46E-03 4.98E-05 7.49E-05 7.47E-05 7.77E-04 4.60E-05 4.56E-04 2.51E-04
5.47% 3.78% 6.94% 49.24% 1.00% 1.50% 1.49% 15.54% 0.92% 9.11% 5.02%
Table 4-7: Results of the transportation phase
Impact category Unit Transport Truck Air, interconti-nental
Air, local Transport to as-sembly
Transport to distribution hub
Transport to customer
GWP kg CO2e 3.00 0.05 2.94 0.00 0.01 2.95 0.04
1.74% 98.22% 0.05% 0.18% 98.53% 1.29%
ADP elements kg Sb-e 6.05E-07 1.32E-07 4.72E-07 1.65E-10 1.03E-08 4.96E-07 9.84E-08
21.87% 78.10% 0.03% 1.70% 82.03% 16.27%
ADP fossil MJ 43.01 0.78 42.21 0.02 0.08 42.35 0.58
1.80% 98.15% 0.05% 0.18% 98.47% 1.34%
Humantox kg DCB-e 2.32 0.01 2.31 0.00 0.00 2.31 0.01
0.54% 99.42% 0.05% 0.09% 99.51% 0.40%
Ecotox kg DCB-e 3.18E-03 1.65E-04 3.01E-03 1.34E-06 1.39E-05 3.04E-03 1.23E-04
5.20% 94.76% 0.04% 0.44% 95.69% 3.87%
49
Table 4-8: Results for the EoL
Impact category Unit EoL total Battery recycling Copper smelter Electrolytic refin-ing
Precious metals recovery
Transport truck Transport rail
GWP kg CO2e -1.11 -0.06 0.05 0.03 -1.16 0.03 9.45E-04
ADP elements kg Sb-e -8.71E-04 -1.82E-05 7.38E-09 -2.20E-05 -8.31E-04 6.25E-08 3.04E-10
ADP fossil MJ -12.85 -0.60 0.33 0.15 -13.14 0.39 1.02E-02
Humantox kg DCB-e -8.08E-01 -3.29E-02 4.18E-02 -4.57E-03 -8.19E-01 6.19E-03 4.22E-05
Ecotox kg DCB-e -6.87E-03 -3.79E-04 1.88E-04 -8.72E-05 -6.67E-03 8.29E-05 7.80E-07
50
4.3.5 Modularity
The modularity has a positive effect on reparability and recyclability and can thereby reduce
the overall life cycle emissions (see repair scenario in section 5.1). However, the material foot-
print for the initial production of the Fairphone 2 is higher (compared to a fictional non-modular
Fairphone 2) due to the following aspects:
Board-to-board connectors are needed to connect the different modules
Additional PCB area are needed for the connectors
Sub-housing of the modules
In this part of the contribution analysis, the impact of these three aspects is calculated and set
into relation to the overall result. The impact of these parts is included in the before discussed
total results
For the sub-housing the resulting materials are displayed in Table 4-9.
Table 4-9: Material for sub-housings
Module Part Material Weight [mg]
Top module Decorated Top Cover Top Module (plastic)
Polycarbonate Granulate (PC) 1602.3
Glass fibers 686.7
Top Cover Top Module Plate (SUS)
Stainless steel cold rolled coil (304) 1100
Bottom Cover Top Module Polyamide 6.6 Granulate (PA 6.6) Mix 773
Glass fibers 773
Camera
module
Top Cover assembly 8M Camera, Print, FP2
Stainless steel cold rolled coil (304) 688
Rear camera module housing
1422
Polyamide 6.6 Granulate (PA 6.6) Mix 506.5
Glass fibers 506.5
Bottom
module
Top Chassis Bottom Mod-ule Assembly
Polyamide 6.6 Granulate (PA 6.6) Mix 1355.5
Glass fibers 1355.5
Brass (CuZn20) 84
Base Chassis Bottom Module Assembly
Polycarbonate Granulate (PC) 767.2
Glass fibers 328.8
Stainless steel cold rolled coil (304) 1199
Totals Polycarbonate Granulate (PC) 2369.5
Glass fibers 3650.5
Stainless steel cold rolled coil (304) 2987
Polyamide 6.6 Granulate (PA 6.6) Mix 1279.5
Brass (CuZn20) 84
The additional PCB to enable the board-to-board connectors adds up to the following:
51
Mainboard (12 layers): 9.86 cm2
Display board (4 layers): 2.70 cm2
Top module board (4 layers): 2.88 cm2
Bottom module board (4 layers): 0.72 cm2
Camera module board (4 layers): 1.47 cm2
No additional factor for cut-offs was assumed within the sensitivity analysis.
The “modularity parts” make up 4 to 12 % of the production phase depending on the impact
category (except ADP elements) and are for most impact categories mainly connected to the
additional PCB area and board-to-board connectors (see Table 4-10).
For the impact category ADP elements the situation is different. The “modularity parts” cause
about half of the total impacts of the Fairphone 2, which is connected to the amount of gold
used in the board-to-board connectors. On the one hand, the use of gold has always a high
impact in the impact category ADP elements. On the other hand, the used data set for ICs
underestimates the ADP value (see also section 4.4 and 4.5) which leads to a higher share of
all other parts.
Table 4-10: Results modularity
Impact category
Unit Production total
Modularity total
BtB con-nector
Sub-housing PCB
GWP kg CO2e 35.98 1.64 0.94 4.21E-02 0.66
4.6% 57.4% 2.6% 40.0%
ADP ele-ments
kg Sb-e 1.48E-03 8.33E-04 7.92E-04 9.72E-07 4.02E-05
56.4% 95.1% 0.1% 4.8%
ADP fossil MJ 148.03 17.03 9.72 6.52E-01 6.66
11.5% 57.1% 3.8% 39.1%
Humantox kg DCB-e 8.35 3.58E-01 8.07E-02 4.38E-02 2.33E-01
4.3% 22.6% 12.3% 65.2%
Ecotox kg DCB-e 1.07E-01 6.93E-03 1.23E-03 8.19E-04 4.88E-03
6.5% 17.8% 11.8% 70.4%
4.4 Sensitivity Analysis
The sensitivity analysis has the goal to analyze how sensitive the results react to changes in
the modelling. Therefore, key parameters and parts are analyzed in the following, possible
other data sets and modelling approaches are used and the influence on the results shown.
This will be done for the following aspects:
ICs
Display
Battery
4.4.1 ICs
The results showed the high impact of ICs on the overall life cycle of the Fairphone 2 for all
impact categories except ADP as the used data set does not cover this impact category. Re-
garding the sensitivity of the results, the result for the mainboard will be described in the fol-
lowing in comparison with two different modelling approaches:
Use of ecoinvent data sets (all impact categories)
Use of data from Ercan (2016) (only GWP)
52
The results are only compared for the mainboard ICs. However, the effect would be the same
for ICs on the other module boards and the camera ICs.
Ecoinvent IC data
The relative and absolute impact of the ICs is significantly higher than in the Fairphone 1 LCA
(see also section 4.5.1). To show the effect of the different data bases the different data sets
used in the modelling, the mainboard of the Fairphone 2 is modelled again with the same
ecoinvent data set as used in the Fairphone 1 LCA:
integrated circuit production, logic type
integrated circuit production, memory type
The comparison shows that the results drop heavily for the impact category GWP and in-
creases significantly for the other impact categories (see Figure 4-16, for detailed figures see
Table 4-11). ADP (elements and fossil) is not covered by the used baseline data model (as
described in section 3.1.9.4). Therefore, it was obvious that the impact would increase for
these impact categories. However, human- and ecotoxicity were covered by the data set, but
the results differ significantly. This sensitivity analysis shows the high variability of the results,
but gives no indication which of the toxicity is more closely to “reality”.
Figure 4-16: Sensitivity ecoinvent IC data – comparison with baseline results (baseline results set to 1)
When comparing the results, it has to be taken into account that the differences of the results
do not stem from the differences in the data set alone but also from the different reference flow
used. Ecoinvent IC data is scaled by mass, baseline IC data per die size. The assumed die-
to-package ratio for the ecoinvent data is not known. So the differences can stem from com-
pletely different assumptions regarding the process emissions or from different assumptions
regarding the share of front-end and back-end processes. However, the authors of this study
consider the die size as the more relevant scaling factor for ICs and the “ecoinvent results” as
not reliable.
With the changes in the absolute results, the relative impact of the mainboard changes as well
(see Figure 4-17). The PCB becomes the most important impact part of the mainboard for the
impact categories GWP, ADP fossil and Ecotox. The ICs are most important for the categories
ADP elements and Humantox.
0
1
2
3
4
5
GWP ADP elements ADP fossil Humantox Ecotox
ICs (baseline)
ICs (ecoinvent)
53
Figure 4-17: Sensitivity ecoinvent IC data - relative impacts of the mainboard per impact category
IC data from Ercan (2016)
Ercan (2016) published an LCA of a smartphone. They used a specific IC data set based on
(unpublished) industry data for GWP:
Logic IC: 3.5 kg CO2e/m2 die (front-end), 1 kg CO2e/m2 die (back-end)
Memory IC: 3 kg CO2e/m2 die (front-end), 1 kg CO2e/m2 die (back-end)
These values are lower than the values used for the baseline calculations, but in the same
range and with the same reference flow (die size). The overall results for the mainboard show
a slightly lower impact of the ICs (see Figure 4-18, for detailed figures see Table 4-12). The
total mainboard results drop by about 9.4 %.
Figure 4-18: Sensitivity Ercan (2016) IC data – relative impact of the mainboard, impact category GWP
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
ICs Passivecomponents
PCB BtBConnector
Rest
GWP
ADP elements
ADP fossil
Human Tox
Eco Tox
ICs; 78.1%
Passive components;
1.6%
PCB; 15.5%
BtB Connector;
4.6%
Rest; 0.2%
54
Table 4-11: Results mainboard, sensitivity analysis for ICs – ecoinvent data
Impact category Unit Mainboard ICs Passive compo-nents
PCB BtB Connector Rest
GWP kg CO2e 5.31 0.88 0.33 3.13 0.92 0.04
100.0% 16.6% 6.2% 59.0% 17.3% 0.8%
ADP elements kg Sb-e 1.53E-03 5.00E-04 4.80E-05 1.89E-04 7.76E-04 1.81E-05
100.0% 32.6% 3.1% 12.3% 50.7% 1.2%
ADP fossil MJ 55.37 9.58 3.97 31.79 9.52 0.52
100.0% 17.3% 7.2% 57.4% 17.2% 0.9%
Human Tox kg DCB-e 7.29 5.41 0.59 1.14 0.08 0.07
100.0% 74.2% 8.1% 15.6% 1.1% 1.0%
Eco Tox kg DCB-e 4.30E-02 1.40E-02 3.69E-03 2.34E-02 1.21E-03 6.50E-04
100.0% 32.7% 8.6% 54.4% 2.8% 1.5%
Table 4-12: Results mainboard, sensitivity analysis for ICs – data according to Ercan (2016)
Impact category Unit Mainboard ICs Passive compo-nents
PCB BtB Connector Rest
GWP
kg CO2e 20.24 15.81 0.33 3.13 0.92 0.05
100.0% 78.1% 1.6% 15.5% 4.6% 0.2%
55
4.4.2 Display
For the display sensitivity, the baseline results were compared with a result using an ecoinvent
data set for a 17 inch LCD computer display. The data set is scaled per weight (36.7 g). The
result is by factor 3.5 higher than for the baseline scenario (impact category GWP).
In comparison, the display result by Ercan (2013) amounts to 3.5 kg CO2e which most likely
includes not only the LCD panel itself but the whole 5.2 inch display unit. This would be in the
same range as the result within this study of 2.7 kg CO2e for the 5 inch display
According to Ercan (2013), the electricity consumption of display manufacturing is about
0.1 kWh/cm2, which would be a factor 10 compared to the figures by AUO: However, the elec-
tricity value from AUO does not include the production of upstream materials.
4.4.3 Battery
The result of the impact assessment for the battery module are relatively low compared to the
other components (e.g. 5.6 % contribution to GWP for two battery modules). To evaluate the
impact of a different scaling approach from the original data set (notebook battery cell) to the
Fairphone 2 battery, the gravimetric energy density of both batteries was compared (Table
4-13).
Table 4-13: Comparison of cell properties
Comparison of cell properties
Cell properties Fairphone 2 BoM Clemm et al. 2016
Mass per cell [g] 38 59.51
Capacity per cell [mAh] 2420 3650
Energy per cell [Wh] 9.2 13.9
Gravimetric energy density [Wh/kg] 242 234
In terms of gravimetric energy density, also known as specific energy, both cells were found
to be in a similar range, with the Fairphone 2 battery cell having a slightly higher energy density
than the laptop cell of the data source (Clemm et al. 2016). This supports the assumption that
the cell data set can be scaled by weight (cp. section 3.1.6)
When the original laptop cell is scaled down to the Fairphone 2 cell via energy rather than
mass, the scaling factor is 0.6619 (9.2 Wh over 13.9 Wh) as opposed to 0.6385. This means
that roughly 3.7 % more material and consumables are required to produce a battery with
9.2 Wh. Consequently, the results of the impact assessment associated with the production of
a battery cell are increased by 3.7 % as well. The BMS is not affected by the scaling approach.
The results of the battery module using the alternative scaling approach are summarized in
Table 4-14.
Table 4-14: Results of the battery module sensitivity analysis
Impact category Unit Battery Module scaled via mass
Battery Module scaled via energy
GWP kg CO2e 1.96 2.02
5.6% 5.7%
ADP elements kg Sb-e 6.39E-05 6.60E-05
8.16% 8.42%
56
Impact category Unit Battery Module scaled via mass
Battery Module scaled via energy
ADP fossil MJ 19.31 19.95
13.88% 14.34%
Humantox kg DCB-e 1.14 1.17
13.78% 14.16
Ecotox kg DCB-e 6.60E-03 6.82E-03
6.31% 6.50%
4.5 Interpretation
The results shown before are interpreted and set into context regarding data quality, data
availability and other existing studies.
Data Quality
The data in this LCA study is based mostly on the data bases ecoinvent and GaBi. From GaBi,
especially the electronics extension is used. The overall quality of the GaBi data is estimated
to be high. However, there is often not enough documentation in detail.
The basic ecoinvent data is also expected to be good, however electronics data sets (which
are used within this data just for components where no specific GaBi data set was available)
are quite old (partly ten years and older).
For three main components, individual data not from the data bases was used.
Battery
ICs
Display
Data Availability
As described in the inventory, most parts were modelled according to their material composi-
tion if available. Primary data was only available for the assembly process at Hi-P. However,
for some parts no specific material compositions were available.
For other components, especially electronic components, modelling according the material
composition is not suitable as the use of energy and process chemicals in the production pro-
cess causes the main environmental impact. Not for all electronic components used in
smartphones reliable and up-to-data data sets exist, e.g. no sufficient data sets were included
in the data bases GaBi and ecoinvent for:
ICs
Displays
Battery
The battery data set stems from Clemm (2016) and is based on primary data from one of the
largest manufacturer of battery cells, with the production site located in China. Although the
data set is originally for a laptop battery, the technology and material composition fits the Fair-
phone 2 battery. The primary data set contains data from cell manufacturing in the year 2013,
however, more recent data sets are not publicly available.
For the electronic components on the BMS, no perfectly fitting data set could be identified for
both the battery protection IC and MOSFET, hence the closest approximation was selected by
package size.
57
Overall, the contribution of the two battery modules assumed during the life cycle of the Fair-
phone 2 is comparatively low in terms of GWP, but is considerably larger in terms of ADP fossil
and Humantox with 13.88 % and 13.78 %, respectively.
ICs
The data for ICs is described in section 3.1.9.4 and is based mainly on data from Boyd (2012)
plus additional assumptions. The data set is estimated to be representative for logic ICs, but
was used for memory ICs as well as no specific memory data was available and is the closest
fit.
There are existing data sets on specific ICs in the GaBi electronics extension data base, how-
ever these are scaled per weight or number of pieces. The relevant parameter is the die size
though (which is not documented in the GaBi data sets). Therefore it is quite difficult to allocate
the correct data set there.
The established IC data set is estimated to be of good quality for logic ICs (especially the CPU)
and an acceptable good fit for memory ICs regarding the impact categories GWP and toxicity.
This was also shown in the sensitivity analysis with the comparison with data from Ercan
(2016). Compared with Ercan (2016), IC front-end data used within this study is comparable,
back-end data is higher and leads to differences in the result of the mainboard of about 10 %.
However, data for ADP are missing for the ICs, see also Table 4-4 and Table 4-5 where entries
for ICs are “0” for ADP (or very low caused by the material entries for the package). This results
in the effect, that the results for ADP are not only too low overall, but also the relative impact
of the modules and component types is different from other impact categories.
Display
The display (panel) data set is based on the CSR report from AUO with detailed information
regarding PFC and other emissions, energy consumption and waste. The data is estimated
reliable for the direct panel production process, but, as the report focusses on scope 1 and 2
emissions, it might be that needed chemicals and processes gases are not named in full detail
and are therefore neglected. The named chemicals CF thinner and array stripper are not de-
scribed further and therefore had to be neglected.
Comparison with data from ecoinvent and Ercan (2013) (see section 4.4.2) showed that the
result for the Fairphone 2 calculated here is rather on the low end, but in the right overall
dimension. However, up-to-date data is very rare and not detailed enough to assess different
display types (e.g. differences in resolution or technology such as OLED).
Board-to-board connectors
The board-to-board connectors are a specific difference between the Fairphone 2 and other
smartphones as they are the enablers of the modularity and were modelled according to the
material declaration. This study shows that they have a small but considerable impact on the
overall life cycle for most impact categories (between 2 and 7 %, see Table 4-5). An exemption
is the impact category ADP elements, where the board to board-connectors cause about half
of the overall impact (of which a considerable amount can be recycled). This is caused by the
gold used for the nickel-gold coated pins in the connectors.
To compare board-to-board connectors with other connection options in the future, the material
declaration is suitable.
58
Cameras
There was little information on the material composition of the cameras and the disassembly
process was quite difficult. Therefore, modelling of the mechanical parts was based on esti-
mations. However, there was direct manufacturer information available on the die size of the
CMOS sensor chips, which have a high environmental impact compared to the mechanical
parts in the camera. So the high-impact parts are covered well.
4.5.1 Comparison with Fairphone 1 LCA
The Fairphone 1 LCA shows a significantly lower result for the Fairphone 1. The difference is
mainly related to the production phase, which is for the Fairphone 1 only 15% of the Fairphone
2. Use phase, transport and EoL are similar in both studies with a little higher result for the use
phase in the Fairphone 1 LCA.
The hardware of the two phones is different. The following differences of the Fairphone 1 com-
pared to the Fairphone 2 have a direct influence on the LCA modelling:
16 instead of 32 GB storage
4.3 instead of 5 inch display and thereby overall smaller form factor
Not modular
However, these differences are not the major reason for the great variance in the results. This
is caused by different modelling approaches and data sets used. The main difference in the
result is the modelling of the ICs. The ICs are modelled in the Fairphone 1 LCA with ecoinvent
“Integrated circuit, logic/memory type”, scaled per weight. As shown in the sensitivity analysis
(see section 4.4.1), the ecoinvent data leads to significantly lower results and seems (at least
for the impact category GWP) not realistic for current IC technologies (see also comparison
with Ercan [2016]). Therefore, the IC results between Fairphone 1 and 2 differ by more than
factor 20.
For a more in-depth comparison see section 8.1 in the annex.
4.5.2 Comparison with other smartphone LCAs
The overall GHG emission results of the Fairphone 2 LCA are 43.9 kg CO2e (results for the
other impact categories can be found in Table 4-2). Compared to other smartphone carbon
footprints provided by the different manufacturers, this is a result in the midrange8. However,
as the comparison with the Fairphone 1 LCA showed, the absolute results depend more on
the used data sets than on the actual smartphone properties and functionalities. For most
public company LCAs/Carbon Footprints no specific details on modelling approaches and used
data are available. However, modelling of the use phase seems (if information is available)
quite consistent with three years use and daily charging.
A recent study on the Sony Z3 and Z5 with similar assumption regarding the modelling of ICs
by Ercan (2016) (see also section 4.4.1) shows results in the same range for the GWP of 50 kg
CO2e (Z3)/57 kg CO2e (Z5). Also the distribution of the impacts is similar. The main environ-
mental impact is connected to the electronics (specifically the ICs). This allows no conclusions
on differences between the specific smartphones models, but shows that the overall range of
results for the Fairphone 2 is realistic.
8 See e.g. Apple 2015; Nokia 2012; Huawei 2012; HTC 2013; Sony 2008; Fairphone 2015; Blackberry
2014, 2015
59
5 Scenarios
5.1 Repair Scenario
In addition to the baseline scenario, a repair scenario is analyzed assuming an extended use
time of five years plus necessary repairs within that time. The following assumptions are ap-
plied:
All phones have to be repaired once within 5 years use
o 60 % display
o 20 % camera module
o 10 % top module
o 10 % bottom module
o A replacement of the core module is not assumed for the repair scenario.
Battery has to be replaced after 2 years, resulting in 3 batteries in 5 years (2 ex-change batteries)
75% of broken modules are returned to Fairphone B.V. (except display and battery)
50% of the broken and returned modules can be repaired or used for refurbishment of other modules/devices
The environmental impact of the refurbishment process itself (e.g. due to energy use, process gases) is neglected as no data is available.
Batteries cannot be refurbished and a recycling is assumed. For displays, a refurbishment of
a broken display module itself is possible (e.g. by replacing broken glass and keeping the LCD
panel). However, the process is difficult and requires specialized equipment. Therefore, a re-
furbishment of the display module was not deemed likely in the near future, in accordance with
discussions with Fairphone B.V.
For the repair scenario, a do-it-yourself-approach (DIY) by the user is assumed. “Professional
repair” in the Netherlands would cause additional transportation as the entire phone would
need to be transported instead of only the broken modules, but no (significant) additional en-
ergy consumption is likely as no specialized electric tools or extensive testing is used at the
repair side in the Netherlands.
Table 5-1: Assumed repairs and part changes within five years use
Need for Re-
placement within
5 years
% returned to
Fairphone B.V.
% being re-
paired/refur-
bished
Total number of
modules repaired
per 100 broken
modules
Top module 0.1 75 50 3.75
Camera module 0.2 75 50 7.5
Bottom module 0.1 75 50 3.75
Display module 0.6 0 0
Battery 2 0 0
These repair assumptions are established in reference to existing failure rates of smartphones,
showing that broken displays are the main failures, followed by water damage, camera and
speaker problems. Water damage can lead to different unspecific failures and often fatal dam-
age of the device and is therefore not addressed in the repair scenario. Besides, the existing
60
failure statistics often only cover devices in their first one or two years of use. It is therefore
assumed that technical failures will increase compared to accident-induced failures (such as
broken displays and water damage).
Figure 5-1: Overall failure rate (malfunctioning and accidents) in the first twelve months [Squaretrade 2010]
Figure 5-2: Repair reasons according to handyreparaturvergleich.de (calculated as averages per publication year of the devices)
5.1.1 Production
For the repair scenario, an additional production of the replaced modules is assumed. Thereby
the number of produced modules is reduced by the number of modules which will be repaired.
61
The following Table 5-2 shows the number of modules and parts which have to be produced
additionally.
Table 5-2: Additional production of parts
Need for Re-
placement
within 5
years
% returned
to Fair-
phone B.V.
% being re-
paired/refur-
bished
Total number of
modules repaired
per 100 broken
modules
Additional
parts com-
pared to base-
line scenario
Top module 0.1 75 50 3.75 0.0625
Camera mod-
ule
0.2 75 50 7.5 0.125
Bottom module 0.1 75 50 3.75 0.0625
Display module 0.60 75 50 22.5 0.6
Battery 2 0 0 1
5.1.1.1 Packaging
Due to repair and replacement additional packaging is calculated. Thereby, only packaging
during transport to the distribution hub and to the customer is calculated:
3rd battery
Top module: 0.1 modules per phone
Camera module: 0.2 modules per phone
Bottom module: 0.1 modules per phone
Display module: 0.6 modules per phone
A factor 1 is assumed for the weight of the sales packaging (cardboard) and a factor 0.5 for
the bulk packaging (20 %, 80 % cardboard). This results in the following additional packaging:
Sales packaging: 72 g cardboard
Bulk packaging:
o 29 g cardboard
o 7 g plastic
The same assumptions as for the baseline scenario apply (see section 3.1.10).
5.1.2 Use
The use time in the repair scenario is extended to five years (compared to three years in the
baseline scenario). This results in an energy consumption of 24.5 kWh. All other assumptions
for the use phase stay the same (see section 3.2).
5.1.3 End-of-Life
The assumptions regarding recycling are not adjusted.
5.1.4 Transport
Due to repair and replacement additional transport is calculated. Thereby, only transport to the
distribution hub and to the customer is calculated:
3rd battery
Top module: 0.1 modules per phone
Camera module: 0.2 modules per phone
Bottom module: 0.1 modules per phone
62
Display module: 0.6 modules per phone
As transported weight, a factor 1 is assumed for the sales packaging and a factor 0.5 for the
bulk packaging. The transportation to customer (for modules except display and battery) is
calculated twice as it is assumed that broken modules are returned to Fairphone B.V.
This results in the following additional transportations:
Transportation to customer: 98.33 kg*km truck
Transportation to distribution hub:
o Truck: 18.9 kg*km
o Oversea air: 956.88 kg*km
The same assumptions as for the baseline scenario apply (see section 3.4).
5.1.5 Results and Interpretation
The results for the repair scenario can be found in Table 5-3.
Table 5-3: Results repair scenario (with module refurbishment)
Impact cate-gory
Unit Total Production EoL Use Transport
GWP kg CO2e 52.39 38.97 -1.14 9.97 4.59
100.0% 74.4% -2.2% 19.0% 8.8%
ADP elements kg Sb-e 6.56E-04 1.53E-03 -8.81E-04 4.44E-06 9.21E-07
100.0% 233.3% -134.2% 0.7% 0.1%
ADP fossil MJ 324.71 166.11 -13.07 105.79 65.89
100.0% 51.2% -4.0% 32.6% 20.3%
Humantox kg DCB-e 12.42 9.29 -0.82 0.39 3.56
100.0% 74.8% -6.6% 3.2% 28.7%
Ecotox kg DCB-e 1.22E-01 1.16E-01 -7.04E-03 8.34E-03 4.86E-03
100.0% 94.9% -5.8% 6.8% 4.0%
The results are higher than for the baseline scenario, but thereby it has to be taken into account
that they are calculated for a five year (instead of three year) use. To set that into context, the
following Figure 5-3 shows the results per year of use for the baseline and repair scenario.
63
Figure 5-3: Results per year of use - baseline and repair scenario (with and without refurbishment of modules)
This shows that a longer use time of the Fairphone 2 is beneficial even when additional mod-
ules have to be produced in case of repairs. This is due to the fact that the main environmental
impact is caused by the core module (see section 4.3.1) which is kept over the whole life cycle
in the repair scenario.
The benefits through repair and longer use compared to the baseline scenario are between 20
and 35 % depending on the impact category and thereby outweigh the additional impact
through the modular design in all impact categories (see section 4.3.5).
The impact of the refurbishment process itself was neglected for the repair scenario, but as
the number of refurbished modules is assumed to be small in the analyzed repair scenario, the
repair scenario is beneficial even without refurbishment of broken modules (see Figure 5-3 and
Table 5-4).
Table 5-4: Results repair scenario (without module refurbishment)
Impact cate-gory
Unit Total Production EoL Use Transport
GWP kg CO2e 52.61 39.18 -1.14 9.97 4.59
100.0% 74.5% -2.2% 18.9% 8.7%
ADP elements kg Sb-e 6.61E-04 1.54E-03 -8.81E-04 4.44E-06 9.21E-07
100.0% 232.5% -133.3% 0.7% 0.1%
ADP fossil MJ 325.13 166.53 -13.07 105.79 65.89
100.0% 51.2% -4.0% 32.5% 20.3%
Humantox kg DCB-e 12.45 9.32 -0.82 0.39 3.56
100.0% 74.8% -6.6% 3.2% 28.6%
Ecotox kg DCB-e 1.22E-01 1.16E-01 -7.04E-03 8.34E-03 4.86E-03
100.0% 95.0% -5.8% 6.8% 4.0%
5.2 Scenario Housing
The Fairphone 2 has a plastic housing. Two different design housing designs are analyzed as
options:
“New” plastic housing
-2
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
Baseline Repair w/refurbishment
Repair w/orefurbishment
GW
P [
kg C
O2
e/y
ear
of
use
]
Transport
Use
Production
EoL
64
Metal housing
The changes in the model only effect the back cover (see section 3.1.7). All other modules, life
cycles phases and assumptions are not changed. Also the EoL-model was not adjusted.
“New” plastic Housing
For future versions of the FP2, the current back cover will eventually be replaced by a new
plastic housing, which consists of 17.47 g polycarbonate (PC) and 1.21 g thermoplastic poly-
urethane (TPU), resulting in a total weight of 18.68 g. This case will be slightly lighter than the
previous one, with a higher share of PC, giving it a minor environmental advantage since less
material is used. The material composition does not have a significant influence as the envi-
ronmental impacts of both materials (PC and TPU) are roughly the same, leaving aside that
50 % of the PC used is stated to be post-consumer recycled. This would lower the impact
greatly, but could also be applied to other case designs. The additional effect of post-consumer
plastic could not be assessed as no corresponding life cycle data was available.
Metal housing
As a different design option, the effect of a metal housing instead of plastic housing is analyzed.
The specifications of the metal housing do not exist yet. Therefore, the aluminum back cover
of the iPhone 6, which has roughly the same form factor as the Fairphone 2, is used as a proxy.
The weight of the aluminum back cover is ~ 32 g compared to ~ 20 g of the plastic back cover.
5.2.1 Results and Interpretation
The replacement of the casing has no significant impact on the absolute results or the relative
share of the life cycle phases (see Table 5-5). The only exemption is the impact category
human toxicity which increases in case of an aluminum housing.
The scenario neglects changes in the recycling process. For the aluminum back cover – as-
suming a positive effect of the recycling (as it can be easily separated and recycled) –, the
overall impact on the whole life cycle would be even lower.
Table 5-5: Results for the housing scenario
Impact category Unit Production Back cover New Plastic Housing
Metal Housing
GWP kg CO2e 35.98 0.09 0.08 0.32 0.2% 0.2% 0.9%
ADP elements kg Sb-e 1.48E-03 3.69E-07 3.58E-07 2.26E-07 0.02% 0.02% 0.02%
ADP fossil MJ 148.03 1.81 1.71 3.46 1.2% 1.2% 2.3%
Humantox kg DCB-e 8.35 2.57E-03 2.46E-03 1.05 0.03% 0.03% 12.6%
Ecotox kg DCB-e 1.07E-01 8.58E-05 8.08E-05 5.11E-04 0.08% 0.08% 0.5%
65
6 Conclusions and Recommendations
The results show that the electronic components as such cause the main environmental im-
pact. Industrial design decisions such as housing materials have a minor impact. Because the
main impact is caused by the product manufacturing, prolonging the use time (number of
years) has a high potential to reduce the overall environmental impact as it was also shown by
the analyzed repair scenario. Thereby, the modular design – although increasing the initial
production impact slightly – has the ability to reduce the overall environmental impact through
enabled repairs.
The analysis again also shows the on-going problem with life cycle assessments for electron-
ics: the availability of specific and up-to-date life cycle data on electronics is still not sufficient
and variances between different data bases and sources is high. Nevertheless, the overall
results are deemed reliable.
6.1 Recommendations
One of the goals of this LCA study was to identify hotspots and derive recommendations. In
the following recommendations regarding product design but also limitations are described.
ICs
ICs have the highest environmental impact when modelled according to this study or Ercan
(2016). This is also in accordance with other studies (e.g. LCA to go (2014)). Reducing the
number of ICs and thereby the die size would result in significant reduction of the environmen-
tal impact. But as the ICs are directly enabling the functionality of the device, they cannot be
easily reduced. However, this is a clear indicator that overdimensioning of the hardware per-
formance has a significant environmental impact. A balance between designing an up-to-date
product which can keep up with on-going trends and avoiding overdimensioning is needed at
the same time.
PCBs
The results also show a significant impact of the PCBs. The environmental impact of the PCBs
is allocated to area and number of layers, and thus, reducing the overall PCB area in a device
has a positive effect. However, environmental trade-offs are expected if the area reduction is
achieved through an increased number of layers. At the same time, reducing the number of
layers is only beneficial when it is not achieved through an increase in area.
When designing the PCB in miniaturized products such as smartphones and tablets, the PCB
area is often designed around other components (e.g. battery) leading to unusual shapes (L-
and U-shapes) which can have a high production impact due to large cut-offs even when the
actual board area is quite small. So the design process should try to achieve the following:
Small overall board area
Simple shapes to reduce cut-offs
Reduce produced area by nesting boards on the produced PCB panel (as it is al-ready done for the Fairphone 2 PCBs, see Figure 6-1)
66
Figure 6-1: Arrangement of mainboard and two antenna boards of the Fairphone 2 on one production panel, 4 boards each per panel [Source: Fairphone B.V.]
Connectors
The board-to-board connectors are a component designed specifically for the modular ap-
proach of the Fairphone 2. The contribution analysis in section 4.3 shows that the connectors
have a minor share in most impact categories. An exception is the impact category ADP ele-
ments where the connectors cause a significant share of the impact (see section 4.3.5) which
is mainly attributed to the gold which is used for the connector pins and contacts on the PCB.
Reducing the coating thickness of pins and contacts would reduce the amount of gold used
and thereby the environmental impact. The thickness of the gold coating is connected to the
long-term reliability as a thinner coating will abrade faster. However, the existing pins of the
board-to-board connectors consist of 1 mass percent gold. As the boards are not constantly
un- and replugged (as e.g. the MicroUSB connector), a thinner gold coating would be worth-
while to consider (and test).
Another option to reduce the impact of the connectors indirectly would be to reduce their size.
Section 4.3.5 shows that for the other impact categories, the main impact of the modularity is
caused by the PCB area needed for the board-to-board connectors (see also Figure 6-2).
Hence, by reducing the size of the connectors, the corresponding PCB area could also be
reduced.
67
Figure 6-2: Mainboard, board-to-board connectors marked in red [Source: Fraunhofer IZM]
Display
The size of the display is directly correlated to the environmental impact. Thus, reducing the
display size would be an obvious option to reduce the overall impact.
Displays are one of the weak points of a smartphone’s robustness and a broken display glass
is a common defect (see e.g. handyreparaturvergleich.de). Therefore, protecting the display
through design measures should be a priority. This is already done for the Fairphone 2 with
the plastic rim extending form the back cover along the display. It should be monitored whether
the plastic rim fulfills its planned function and effectively reduces the actual number of broken
displays.
As a following point, repair should be enabled (as it is done with the modular design of the
Fairphone 2). The repair scenario showed that replacement of the display as a repair measure
has a positive overall result. However, this positive effect could even be increased if the display
itself would be repairable. The display causes a share of about 2 to 5 % of the overall impact.
The main share is caused by the production of the LCD panel. Most defects are only broken
cover glasses while the actual display panel is still intact.
Therefore, display glass and LCD panel which are not fused together can allow a repair in case
of broken glass. This of course would require qualified repair personnel and equipment. On
the other hand, robustness has to be taken into account to ensure that a display without fused
LCD/glass is sufficiently reliable and offers enough ingress protection against humidity and
dust.
Regarding the technology type, existing data is not sufficient to give specific advice. OLED is
a technology option instead of LED. However, as described in the LCI, there is not even a
reliable data set for an LED touch display yet, which had to be derived from a company CSR
report. No data sets exist for OLED displays. Hence, a comparison from an LCA perspective
is currently not possible.
68
OLED displays are expected to improve energy efficiency slightly compared to similar LCD
displays while (at the moment) a lower lifetime compromises the benefits. At the same time,
manufacturing of OLEDs is more complex which however cannot yet be described in environ-
mental terms, as life cycle data is missing. Due to the lack of suitable data sets, a quantification
of the trade-off is currently not possible, but it is assumed that – because the energy consump-
tion in the use phase causes a smaller share of the life cycle impact of a smartphone – at the
current state of technology an OLED display does not pay-off from environmental perspective.
Dimensioning of the hardware
In case of the overall design and hardware configuration, it has to be kept in mind that all parts
have to be produced and no functionality comes “for free”. Therefore, over-dimensioning
should be avoided. Besides, the production efficiency increases for many parts (especially
memory and storage). So upgradeable hardware can be beneficial from an environmental per-
spective, instead of a maximum configuration right from the start.
Battery
The battery has a relevant environmental impact. The battery lifetime determines how many
batteries have to be produced over the whole life cycle, so using high-quality, durable batteries
is important. In a similar fashion to the discussion on overdimensioning of ICs above, there
may be trade-offs in terms of battery durability and environmental impact of the production
process. While a battery with a high capacity relative to the power consumption of the device
may reduce the number of charging cycles required per time, this may also mean an increase
in the amount of materials and consumables required for the production process of such a cell.
Although it is expected that the energy density of battery cells will continue to increase, a higher
capacity battery cell may also mean increased dimensions of the battery. While many
smartphone manufacturers are able to maximize the battery dimensions within the device while
keeping devices lean in design, this often comes at the cost of integrating batteries, rendering
them non-accessible to the user. For the sake of the longevity of the Fairphone, it is not rec-
ommended to integrate the battery in a future version of the Fairphone, thus keeping the bat-
tery accessible and replaceable by the user.
Mode of transportation
Smartphones tend to be shipped from their place of manufacturing, most commonly China, to
the distribution hubs in Europe and the USA via air freight. If the option of shipping via rail or
oceanic vessel is feasible as an alternative, it has the potential to reduce the impacts associ-
ated with the transportation of the final product. However, considerable delays compared to air
freight are to be expected.
Data availability/acquisition
The LCA showed that – not only for the Fairphone 2 but for electronics in general – up-to-date
and specific life cycle data for electronics is missing. Collecting primary data from component
manufacturers is time consuming and difficult, as e.g. confidentially problems might occur.
Therefore, it was not possible to derive primary data from component suppliers within this
study. Nevertheless, Fairphone B.V. should pursue this work. Focus on the primary data col-
lection should be on parts and components with a high production impact:
ICs, especially CPU and memory
Display
PCBs
Battery
69
Such primary data has the potential to improve the quality of the LCA and enhance the accu-
rate fitting to the specific Fairphone characteristics. It also builds the foundation for an individ-
ual hotspot analysis in the Fairphone manufacturing process.
The effect of an increased share of primary data on the numeric LCA result is difficult to predict.
It is often the case that more detailed analyses result in higher estimated environmental im-
pacts (as more processes and materials are covered). This however should not be seen as a
drawback, as it still helps to improve the overall quality of the assessment and increase the
knowledge about the product’s manufacturing processes.
70
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73
8 Annex
Excluded from this public version of the report.
